Re: Megaupload.com seized

[Steven Bellovin <smb () cs columbia edu>]

On Jan 21, 2012, at 8:00 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Lyle Giese" <lyle () lcrcomputer net>
>
> > Not that I would not be a bit miffed if personal files disappeared, but
> > that's one of the risks associated with using a cloud service for file
> > storage. It could have been a fire, a virus erasing file, bankruptcy,
> > malicious insider damage... Doesn't matter, you lost access to legit
> > content in the crossfire.
>
> I'm not sure this is actually true.  The Law generally recognizes 'accident'
> as a means for relieving people of responsibility for criminal acts -- it
> can't *be* a criminal act without scienter on the part of the doer.

Actually, that's often not true in recent laws.  There was an article in the
Wall Street Journal a month or so ago that gave some glaring examples of not
just laws but actual convictions.
> In this case, the doer was negligent, rather than purposefully malicious,
> but we have solutions for that as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by "doer" here.

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2012/01/copyrights-feds-push-novel-theories-in-megaupload-case.html
has an interesting analysis.  It presents a number of factual statements that
are capable of multiple interpretations.  This in turn means that much of the
case is likely to turn on scienter, which in turn means heavy reliance on the
seized emails.  This will be an interesting case to watch.


                --Steve Bellovin, https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb