What is Digg?262 Comments
- Pimpalicious316, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20IT WAS NOT LEGALLY EVIDENCE!!!
what part of that don't you people understand? evidence MUST be collected and have the proper paperwork filled out for it to be legally considered evidence in a court of law. yes, it is suspicious and there is little doubt he erased it because of the lawsuit, but he is not in any legal trouble because of it. granted, they could convince the judge that he did it soley because of the lawsuit, but he should not be held in contempt for destroying evidence. - Pimpalicious316, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20he did not destroy evidence. a piece of property is not considered evidence until formally called up in a court order. if he blanked the hard drive before they could apply for it to become evidence in the trial, than that is the court/Paramounts fault for not doing it ASAP.
- zudd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11There is a dead SIMPLE solution to this problem, provided you anticipate such a thing.
1) erase any questionable content/software from comp
2) use norton ghost to dump a copy of your disk to a diff comp
3) reinstall everything
...4) when THE MAN comes a knockin, use something like DBAN or Autoclave to securely erase your disk and dump the old image back on. Then, just say that you haven't even used your computer for months/years...just look at the file dates!
5) Tell the RIAA/MPAA to ***** OFF - Ryland, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Not only is there a presumption of innocence, there's a little thing in the Constitution called the 5th Amendment, that says you don't have to incriminate yourself.
- nozol03, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Doesn't matter if it is suspicious or not that he formatted his hard drive... there is not proof that he ever had it. Technically, I don't think formatting the computer (being his property) can be described as destroying evidence unless he was actually subpoenaed by the court and instructed not to do so. Someone tells me I'm under investigation for anything, I'd wipe the hard drive Dept. Of Defense style (500 Sector Overwrites) on principle alone. Not to mention, even if this BS sticks, destruction of evidence carries a lesser charge than being found guilty in this case.
- weesee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10reaon #2134 to store everything on a separate hard drive preferably a USB external.....what files?
- geminus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Wait a minute, if the cops go to raid a drug dealer's house and the dealer successfully flushes his drugs down the toilet before the cops get in, can they charge him for posession of the drugs? Not unless they gave it to him and video taped that as well. You want to know why Enron execs shredded docs even thought hey knew it was illegal? Because shredding the docs would bring a lesser charge than if the courts ever saw the true extent of the illegal damage done... "They may be dumb, but they're not stupid."
- WackyT, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Here's the case, if anyone is interested. Sounds to me like destruction of evidence.
http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/05D1458P.pdf - ParanoiaAgent, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13BS. The courts have always worked that way. It's called destroying evidence.
- zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Have you lot ever used Windows before? It's the sort of thing you have to tear down and reinstall ever couple of weeks anyway...
- lepton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Mac has a "Secure Empty Trash" command right under the regular empty trash command in the system menu! Check out this quote from apple.com:
"People are getting pretty freaky about the security of the files on their drives. Especially since they’ve learned that even though they “trashed” some of their most personal and sensitive files and thought they were gone forever, they’re still recoverable. And not just recoverable by the FBI lab, but by your average junior-high student.
That’s why Apple created a secure version of the Empty Trash command called (big surprise) Secure Empty Trash. Without going into too much techno-geek-speak, it deletes your file and writes over the drive space where it once lived so many times that agents from top-secret government agencies that we’re not even supposed to know exist couldn’t resurrect those files. In short, use Secure Empty Trash when you really want your files gone for good." - WackyT, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Destruction of evidence and self-incrimination are two seperate issues. The computer and it's data were considered evidence. It's funny how 16 days after being notified by Comcast that they were turning over his info to Paramount Pictures for online piracy allegations that he decided to erase and reformat his computer's hard drive, isn't it?
- bikee4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Doesn't have to be worth something before it's stealing?
- Cybrwolf, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I'm sorry to say, but today's standards are clear. "Guilty until proven innocent," is the way the courts currently work. 8(
- kevbryant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5thats like caliming someone is guilty of murder because you found no finger prints and the suspect just happened to be wearing gloves that day
- Adrienne2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5if the key piece of evidence was the computer...why didn't they take it....damn, people are stupid.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This being a civil case, the standard required for a judgement against the man is much lower. Instead of "beyond a reasonable doubt", it is just "a perponderance of evidence". So, it is feasible for the court to take this into consideration.
I don't agree with it, but this just how civil cases work. This is why tort reform is needed badly. Everyone can sue everyone else for almost anything and its much easier for the plaintiffs to win. - AAA-, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This is a civil trial, not criminal. The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply here. Just think of the OJ Simpson case; he was found innocent in the criminal case, but was liable in the civil case.
- mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Now, how can you explain the IP address?"
Easy - they logged it and logs can be faked. It is, in fact, not that hard to do. Imagine somebody working for them doesn't meet his quota for the day. It's also easy to find the IP address of anyone on a p2p network - most clients will show you the IP address of anyone you're uploading to or downloading from. So what does he do? Grab a few random IP addresses and put them down in the logs as being uploaders of whatever content they're looking for.
Here's my question - why are the logs the *AA companies bring in treated as incontrivertible evidence? How is a computer log irrefutable? They can be faked, so why isn't this acknowledged in these cases?
I can open my firewall logs and make it look like Microsoft, the RIAA and MPAA all tried to hack into my computer at the same time. It's very simple. It would also only take me about ten minutes to doctor a screenshot to have in addition to the fake logs.
Oh, and some of you guys, you really make me laugh with the Illegal = Wrong philosophy. By that standard, America should still be the colonies of the Crown since everything our founding fathers did to gain independence was totoally illegal at the time. By that argument, Jesus *should* have been crucified because what he was doing was illegal.
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! Any country in the world can pass laws that allow them to do anything they want to you and/or make the simplest thing illegal, such as running a completely legitimate charity to help children suffering from a disease. Countries can malke laws so that it's perfectly legal for them to, say, rape and torture your daughter (it has happened) and it would be illegal for you to interfere. Just because doing something runs contrary to some law doesn't make it wrong. - CoolSilver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Couldn't he had said he got a virus and didn't know any better.... wait it's a mac.
- calzone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Erasing files, reformatting drives, making fresh installs of OSs and apps, making and deleting copies and moving stuff around so that modification dates could change, repartitioning your drive, changing the hierarchy of your data, wiping old useless data....
These are all part of the normal everyday maintenance and operation of a computer.
Shredding paper documents is distinctly the destruction of a physical object containing sensitive information. He didn't destroy his drive, he simply used it, which has the effect of changing information.
If it was possible to have an analogous situation with paper, it would be because your incriminating papers are a limited resource you habitually erase (magically somehow) and reuse for new purposes. - gwjc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4BTW: everyone who keeps spouting their "destroying evidence" nonsense.. there is nothing wrong with destroying evidence per se. washing your hands is destroying evidence in the right circumstances. Knowingly destroying evidence with an intent to conceal your guilt if you have commited a crime is the issue. Do you keep _all_ of your receipts to _prove_ you didn't steal the things in your house.. would it be fair of the courts to accuse you of "destroying evidence" because you threw out your receipts.
- fredgarvin1138, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5If you RTFA it says that the judged dismissed the motion for a summary judgement - so all you "guilty until proven innocent" knee-jerkeres can go have a glass of milk and calm down.
He can't be found guilty of piracy, but he can be held in contempt of court (or worse) for destroying evidence. - kaemaril, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3phaedrus73 : I didn't know a Mac G4 cube could even run Windows. As to the disc being reformatted and a new OS installed ... well, why would that stop a competent forensic analysis of the disc? Isn't it all about "magnetic shadows" and so on these days?
By the way, the article DOES give a plausible reason for why he overwrite the disc anyway. Assuming that "Stephanie Seymour" is a credible witness (not, for example, his girlfriend :) ) and can corroborate his claim that she was interested in buying it, I don't see this being a problem. Further, as he's not a law-enforcement officer or officer of the courts, provided he hadn't already given notice he was going to defend himself, I don't see how he could have been bound by any rules of evidence. They should have moved to subpoena his computer right away, only then would a private citizen have been bound to preserve the evidence, surely? - lordthor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"I hate these alarmist statements. One court case doesn't magically apply universally to every judge, law, and court in the entire country. It's just one decision, and as a free citizen, you can complain about it. The country is not "lost.""
It sets a presidence that can throw the balance of justice signifigantly.
Quiet, you. - aggrorobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For all the people saying that the "memory" is not preserved when the computer is turned off and scoffing at the judge with your tech-jargon-superiority, you're wrong. Hard drives are also memory devices. Memory just refers to anything which retains state over time. Yes, when people talk about the memory of a computer, they're generally referring to RAM, but that's not the ONLY way the word memory is used in the context of computing.
- gwjc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3> jdbiase said: If this guy did steal the movie, he knew that it was stealing, and therefore knew by wiping his HDD he was destroying evidence."
You're just making my case with your "if". I contend he is innocent; therefore he was not destroying evidence.. your contention only works if you _assume_ he is guilty first.. which is the whole point here, now isn't it? - aussiehuw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The RIAA and others are dicks, and copyright law is stupid. That said, erasing your hard drive *after* being hit with a lawsuit is really suspicious.
- Rajio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"I'd wipe the hard drive Dept. Of Defense style"
I'd wire the hard drive Monster Garage style (with fire) - lmurillo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Well, even if he formatted his hard drive the FBI could simply get the data back, they have methods. This is the reason that hard disks must be destroyed completely so the data they have can't be recovered.
Banks do this, or at least they should, the US Military does this as well, they format the hard drive and then destroy it completely, meaning that the platters must be shred. I once spoke with a computer forensics investigator and he told me that unless the platters are shred or the electromagnetic layer destroyed then the data can still be recovered. So it doesn't matter if this person formatted his hard drive the FBI can still recover the data and if they find anything they can charge him for whatever he was going to be charged and for destroying evidence. - weesee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5the best defense to this is to
only trade media with
those that you can go to thier
house and hook up your external
hard drive and leach. My policy is
to never ever use any P2P
software. Either buy it if you must download...or only get it in real life and store it safely away. - tatical, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I have a few computers at home, but I only download stuff with ONE of them. If "The Man" wants to look at my computer due to file sharing, I'd just secure, move, etc. the box with the data, and give them any other computer. Too easy...
- ross., on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Why wasn't the the damn computer confiscated??
If the police sent you a letter saying you have to go to court because they know you've got a bag of weed in the house, clearly you'd flush the bag of weed...especially if they raided the place two weeks after the letter!
This whole case is screwed up. - gwjc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually mrfreeze if tatical has several computers he likely NAT's them behind one MAC facing his ISP (more than likely cheapo dedicated router) so their subpoena still wouldn't matter. He also, in a sideways fashion, brings up the reason these cases almost never make it to criminal prosecution; because even if they prove it was his machine.. they still have to prove it was him doing it.. which is extremely difficult.
- kajoob, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7In many states rules of evidence and in the federal rules, you have a duty to preserve evidence. If you destroy evidence, then the burden does shift to you and you have to prove you didn't do whatever it is you're charged with. This is how it has worked forever, and for good reason. Would you all be saying "Guilty 'til proven innocent! America is no more!" if Enron could just shred their documents and get away with their crimes? Yeah I didn't think so. Now sit down, shut up, and go to law school.
- kingmanor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3My solution is 2 hard drives. 1 is the OS and major apps ONLY. 2 is the data/mp3s/downloads. Putting everything in My Documents is the stupid way to work. you can always remove the second drive if u need to before the cops come, or make it a pgp drive.
- grayapple, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well if you can delete somthing on OSX that the FBI can't find, how will a movie company?
- Caladan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> shortstax33 wrote: First of all, to all of you who cape [sic] bringing up the issue of the judge asking for the preservation of memory, and not of storage, what do you think RAM is? Its temporary data storage. A hard drive is a solid state data storage medium. Random Access Memory, is a non-solid state data storage medium.
You mean non-volatile data storage medium for a hard drive and solid state volatile data storage medium. Some might even argue that the hard drive is not solid-state as it relies on motion of the platters and heads to be used, i.e. moving. Transistors and ICs are solid state devices.
Back to the story:
Why the hell did he wait 16 days, if you receive that letter and do as so many of the techies say in this list of comments and super-secure-nifty-difty-dooper DoD 26+ passes with PGP file wipe using random moving inversions and finishing it with a 000 then 111 then 010 then 101 write of your drive to try and preserve the quality of the platters so that they can store data in the future (yeah, I wrote that much for "wipe your drive"), then you're incriminating yourself, plain and simple, whether it's legal that you have wiped your drive or 'illegal' because you destroyed evidence.
However, waiting 16 days drumming your fingers on your mouse pad trying to figure out what to do because a big bad xyAA is coming down on you tells me one of two things: The guy is dumb and stupid (not just dumb for wiping his drive but stupid for waiting 16 days to do it). Or 2), the sound reason that he was selling the computer.
Now, a couple of assumptions and their implications, with very poor logical flow and no real ending:
1 - OS9.2.2, what he claims to have had on the Cube at the time of infringement, according to BayTSP, takes less space in a typical install than OSX 10.anything.
If he had OS9.2.2, case closed, he wasn't running eDonkey as (he says) it can't be run on 9.2.2.
OR if he had hacked eDonkey to work on 9.2.2 (but WHY? ) then the rather large video file that is in question was likely on his computer fairly far down the memory map of his HD.
2 - When reinstalling an OS, using the same FS, the same OS disk will always create the same files in the same place, at the beginning of the disk('s memory map)
If that's so then the file is likely still present on his computer, even after loading on OSX, as it probably didn't take up so much space beyond 9.2.2 that it overwrote the movie.
Bad points or good points you may be saying right now, but I still have a hard time buying this 16 day thing - esp. b/c the guys a techie.
Unless, the moment he got the letter, he dumped his OSX cube and installed 9.2.2, and ran it for 16 days, making changes to the files, changing the date every 2 days so it seemed like he created many files over a period of weeks and then, on the 16th day of this, he installed OSX without any of the previous protections.
This gives him two major advantages - one he looks like an idiot for having rewritten the drive destroying the evidence that could show that he was not infringing. The second is that he created a plausible back story for his argument with the 9.2.2 install for a little more than 2 weeks real time, and probably months, if not years of faked 'computer time.'
If they go back and perform a forensic analysis of the drive at this point, they should find footprints from his 9.2.2 install, and a layer below that (deeper on the disk/further down the memory map of the HD) the find some older OSX stuff, now he's screwed, esp. if the movie (as I previously hypothesized) exists in that area.
Another issue that came up throughout the comments is the time frame - if it a week has passed since the movie has hit the theaters, assuming it's distributed on film, not digital media, then the only reasonable way to pirate the movie would be to tape it, unless the movie was grabbed on the inside from editing machines and shared that way. So what? you say.
Well, BayTSP has portions of the video file they downloaded from the IP address that Comcast later said belonged to Davis at the time of infringement according to BayTSP. What does the video look like - I assume any reasonable person would be able to tell the difference between a video shot by a camera in a theater and a digital rip of a movie. If it's videoed, there's a good chance that Paramount has the beginnings of a case against Davis, if it's a digital rip, Paramount's got some investigating to do, Internal Affairs-style.
There's a lot left to the case and it will be interesting to see how it turns out. I did read the article, but I did not read the decision, so if any of the above is explicitly addressed in the opinion, I apologize. - Muddle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Christ would you people read the article. He didn't download the movie according to the lawsuit, hes accused of being the first person after the movie hit the theaters to upload it. In other words someone using that IP sat in a movie theater with a video camera, copied the movie, transfered it to a computer and uploaded it using eDonkey.
A GUI for the eDonkey2000 and Overnet file-sharing programs on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and other *nix systems. http://ed2k-gtk-gui.sourceforge.net/download.shtml - Mabu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hey, he was distributing Lemony Snickett. He deserves at least 20-to-life for inflicting that stupid movie upon the Internet public.
- gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Man, every time a story dealing with intellectual property rights comes up on Digg I'm saddened. It takes TIME, LABOR, MONEY, TALENT/SKILL, and CREATIVITY to make a movie or music. If I had worked for a couple years on something I would want to get paid for my efforts. Sure, it's easy to copy the medium, but the medium is nothing without all of the labor that went into making it. You're not stealing the physical DVD, you're stealing the time, effort, and money that went into producing the movie.
- fredtellum, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3A better way to handle this is through virtualization. Your real computer in isolated and the virtual computer could be disposed /dev/null
- gwjc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> Twoslick said: "..Nowhere in the article does it say that the guy is seen as guilty"
Actually twoslick it says right in the article:
"...Paramount alleges that Davis' actions were intentional to prevent detection of his infringing activities.
You people who aren't bothered by this are scarier than the judge in the case. I hope someday they accuse you of the same; good luck defending yourself and proving you did not have something they claim you did. If this crap is allowed then it is a case of being forced to prove yourself innocent. I don't think it will be.. the judge said it best it's: "impossible to determine whether the motion picture or eDonkey software was on the computer". Anyway, If they had sufficient evidence, they would have obtained a court order to get his PC before he could do this. Even if he hadn't wiped his drive they could still claim post facto that he'd destroyed evidence .."oh they files aren't there because he wiped them, etc." and probably would have, because they have such a weak case against him. Laughable would be a better way of putting it.. I love "...or should have known that the computer's memory was a crucial piece of evidence"..ROTFLMAO.. No, they _should_ have specified that they felt his Hard-drive was important evidence, their failure to do so just hilights their incompetence. This is just another example of the rich persecuting the poor hoping to get a quick settlement and make an example of him. I hope the EFF or someone will go to bat for this guy now that his case is getting a bit of publicity. Hopefully, he can counter-sue them for the suffering this has put him through. - jay0312, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That sucks. Crappy movie too.
- dick-richardson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"That said, I do find it extremely suspicious that he wiped the disk AFTER finding out about the lawsuit."
I'd wipe my drive if I found out about a pending lawsuit, too. ***** hypocrites saying this guy is guilty of destroying evidence...maybe he had pictures of ex-girlfriends/wives he didn't want some ***** having going through, maybe he just didn't want his web tracks traced. Hell, as unlikely as it might seem maybe his comp became so loaded down with spyware he didn't have a choice. - WackyT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"just out of curiousity what evidence do they have that he was serving the file through edonkey? Do they have the bits he supposedly transmitted through the internet? I'm unsure how that could work."
"Using the method described above, BayTSP began searching for the motion picture on
eDonkey in early December 2004. On December 23, 2004 at 04:49:52 PM Eastern Standard
Time, BayTSP located an eDonkey user offering for download 100% of a file labeled “lemony
snickets ‘jim carey’.mpg” with the IP address 69.141.202.170. BayTSP downloaded segments of
the digital file, saved the relevant identifying information described above, and created an
evidence log for this infringer. BayTSP also concluded that this infringer was a first propagator
because he or she was the first to offer a digital copy of the motion picture with a unique hash
identifier not previously assigned to other files on the eDonkey network and he or she offered for download a file that had 100% of the picture. Paramount claims that this evidence collected and
prepared by BayTSP proves that this individual was infringing on Paramount’s copyright and
was a first propagator. Paramount later confirmed that this file was its motion picture."
http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/05D1458P.pdf - 44north, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would have done the same thing. I assume none of you use bittorrent to download movies and you ALL pay for every song you download. Until that computer is taken from my house under order from the court, it is MY property. I can do what I want with it. If they seize it and find the files, that is a different story. The issue here is not that he erased his hard drive, the issue is the MPAA is going after low-level "pirates" because they are the low hanging fruit instead of the DVD pressing farms out there that sell thousands of copies on the street.
- digitalsin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If this guy was smart he would have spilt a few glasses of beer inside the computer and swapped the hard drive.
"I'm sorry judge, I was sitting at my computer and saw this pending lawsuit and it said RIAA - naturally I jumped out of my chair and spilled my beer all over the thing. I wish to countersue for damages and losses as this was really a big waste of beer!" - ConorKiley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Every post defending stealing makes me shake my head in disbelief even more."
You can repeat the word "stealing" until the cows come home, it doesn't change the fact that *sigh* what we are seeing take place is a desperate attempt to retard technology and freedom by an entrenched corporate structure seeing its business model dissolve.
I don't defend theft and your myopic attempt to define everyone who has a problem with how foolish and destructive the actions of the RIAA/MPAA are is ignoble.
I get the feeling you would have been on the side who wanted the printing press banned.
You can't put the genie back into the bottle. Adapt or die. There is so much money to be made, sadly the people who have the money now are eating their young for the sake of a paycheck.
It will simply take a generational shift for this nonsense to stop, when the young people of today begin to assume roles of true power and influence they will introduce the new business model and become insanely rich. Unless they all decide to become mercenary lawyers.
It's only a matter of time before the first few artists find international fame and fortune through direct relationships with audiences and discover that people are more than willing to pay artists they admire and respect directly.
I want my money to go to the people who actually created the content I admire, not to support accountants, marketing teams, lawyers, Washington lobbyists... - el_jefe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"It's becoming even more amazing to me that so many of you think there's nothing wrong with stealing" - posted by jdibiase (0) at 12:51
+1
Also, for those not aware...there is currently a law to protect the copyright owner of a piece of work from theft. If you have a problem with a copyright holder going after someone for violating that law, then your beef should be with the law not the individual operating under it. If you want it changed then write your representative, do not think continuing to break the law will somehow magically make it "legal". If you do not tell your representative how your feel, how will he represent you? I am willing to bet most if not all of the people who continue to steal copyrighted material never once voiced their opinion on the DMCA to their representative. It amazes me that so many people in this country have no idea how laws are made and how they work. -
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