Tuesday, 24 January 2012

This Dotcom guy miiiiiight not be on the up-and-up

quote [ His license plates told a tale of pomposity, reading KIMCOM, HACKER, STONED, GUILTY, MAFIA, GOD and POLICE. ]

With all the Mega talk, I wanted to post something on the man that created the site. It's like if someone from 4Chan was suddenly given millions of dollars.

Nickname: Dr. Evil
Initially failed his NZ residency because he failed the "good character" test.

"The FBI estimates that Dotcom personally made around $115,000 a day during 2010 from his empire."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/23/us-internet-piracy-megaupload-idUSTRE80K07Q20120123

Plays a shitload of Modern Warfare and has a little party when he reaches #1. Also plays dirty when he races.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10780708

Long video clip where you can eventually hear his evil Deutsch accent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6nFxelxkp8

Edit: For those who don't realize this guy is a big piece of crap, please read this opinion piece that lines up all of Dotcom's past transgressions
http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/57575/opinion-bernard-hickey-argues-kim-dotcom-convicted-thief-and-insider-trader-who-expose

[sci&tech] [by bltrocker@1:45amGMT] [+2]

Comments

Dioxin said @ 1:51am GMT on 24th Jan
Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps only to get beaten down by the man. btards get no break these days.

sacrelicious said @ 1:53am GMT on 24th Jan
oooh, a shrubbery maze!

sacrelicious said @ 2:00am GMT on 24th Jan
I want to hear more about this "good character" test.

bltrocker said @ 2:38am GMT on 24th Jan
http://glossary.immigration.govt.nz/Goodcharacter.htm

sacrelicious said @ 2:49am GMT on 24th Jan
damn, I was hoping it was more along the lines of a series of questions such as "if you see an old woman crossing the street do you: a) help her, b) offer her friendly advice from afar, c) make fun of her shoes, or d) kick her in the back of the knees and steal her purse"

cause I would totally ace that! it's d, right?

swiggy said @ 3:00am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:3 Underrated]
You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you.

You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back.

The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.

sacrelicious said @ 3:03am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Funny]
nonsense, I'd shoot the turtle with fireballs, or perhaps whack at it with my squirrel tail.

structured_spirits said @ 3:25am GMT on 24th Jan
I'm pretty sure that was a giant scrotum, not a squirrel tail.

sacrelicious said @ 4:14am GMT on 24th Jan
flattery will get you everywhere.

lalanda said @ 3:08am GMT on 24th Jan
What do you mean I'm not helping?

mechanical contrivance said @ 3:35am GMT on 24th Jan
It's not Shake n Bake.

Carlo Paz said @ 1:01pm GMT on 24th Jan
Relax lalanda, it's just a test.

lordanthony said @ 11:02pm GMT on 24th Jan
Describe in single words, only the good things that come in to your mind about your mother.

chold_numa said @ 6:22am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Insightful]
No one who speaks German could be an evil man!

arteitle said @ 2:11am GMT on 24th Jan
People actually paid Megaupload money for something? Who, what, why?

structured_spirits said @ 2:17am GMT on 24th Jan
Advertisers paid for hits, and there are actually people who legally distribute large files to others who hire a service so they can accomplish this task.

Ronin.ca said @ 2:12am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:2 Underrated]
I honestly don't give a fuck. I can't even begin to stress this enough, he can be the biggest fucking dick to ever walk the face of the earth. This shit is scary as.

sherlock said @ 4:52am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:5 Insightful]
I disagree. Take whatever position about piracy you want in general, but making millions of dollars off other's work without giving a dime back, operating your business like a drug-lord, and living like fucking Nero is wrong and I'm glad the guy's empire was shut down.

swiggy said @ 7:03am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Insightful]
And this, right here, is why if you run an enterprise of questionable legality, You live quietly and simply, squirreling money away for that inevitable time when you need to disappear.

EPT said @ 9:20am GMT on 24th Jan
What, you mean like the hollywood and music industry giants, destroying freedom of speech wherever they can to preserve their profits that keep growing every year?

In real terms, who has suffered for what this guy and his crew have done? How does it stack against the harm perpetrated by the people he is parasiting from?

sherlock said @ 5:32pm GMT on 24th Jan
I hate them too, and I hope hollywood somehow gets what's coming to it for their support of SOPA and PIPA. Neither of these forces are good players.

Who has suffered: every Internet user suffered from the spam generated by his method of incentivizing downloads. Content creators suffered by reduced sales. The general economy suffered as a result of his waste.

v21 said @ 5:56pm GMT on 24th Jan
That is taking a position on piracy, though.

And yeah, people tend to look bad in smear pieces. That's the point.

Ronin.ca said @ 7:35pm GMT on 24th Jan
But reports are that he did give money back.

Also, as one of my musician friends put it, I'm glad that all the artists are suddenly getting huge cheques through their door.. phew.. thank god they caught that Dotcom bastard who was hoarding all that moniez!

sherlock said @ 7:41pm GMT on 24th Jan
Could you link to said reports? And well, yeah, were we to expect the impact was going to be dramatic? That would be like saying we shouldn't put mobsters in jail because there will always be street crime anyway.

Ronin.ca said @ 7:51pm GMT on 24th Jan
There are links to various artists talking about it, prominently Busta. http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=megaupload+money+to+artists&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

sherlock said @ 8:25pm GMT on 24th Jan
Busta's writing was (not surprisingly) pretty inarticulate. Now 90% on the dollar for free downloads ... with ad money we're usually talking about a few dollars per thousand impressions, or in other words maybe something like 1/2 cent per download. If he were independent he could, for example, get 70 cents per download on iTunes.

But let's face it: it's actually the label that's made him a star. Without the label he wouldn't be getting those megaupload hits in the first place. That combined with the fact he's voluntarily with the label makes his praise of Megaupload and critique of the label's terms with Spotify kind of weak.

sherlock said @ 8:32pm GMT on 24th Jan
Also: how was this 90% on the dollar deal with Busta even arranged? This is totally unclear to me.

v21 said @ 11:36pm GMT on 24th Jan
Most of this I'm not going to ignore, but it's worth knowing that Spotify's best move was to sell about 25% of itself for a song to the record labels, thereby changing the terms of every deal they struck with them thereafter. Labels have a severe conflict of interest negotiating with Spotify, and usually tie in artists for extended periods of time - quite possibly longer than the deal with Spotify has existed.

(plus, pirated song != bought song/lost sale)

As I said, that doesn't address the megaupload side of the argument. I have no idea, there.

structured_spirits said @ 2:15am GMT on 24th Jan
What kind of people think that just because they're not US citizens or in US territory that they're not subject to US law? And on top of that the media has shown us he's a big fat ugly nerd - and he's rich!. So clearly he must be a criminal.

structured_spirits said @ 2:36am GMT on 24th Jan
And fuck the news media for being good little nazis and running this shit propaganda, so that people will know he's "bad."

sanepride said @ 2:38am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Insightful]
As you know I don't share your penchant for conspiracy theories, but in this case it's reasonable to assume that Dotcom and MegaUpload were targeted at least partly because he's such an outwardly unsympathetic character. Definitely helps to get to sway a jury toward conviction when the defendant is a big fat ugly super-rich nerd.

sanepride said @ 2:41am GMT on 24th Jan
And yes, the news media and this post are definitely playing into the 'official' narrative here. Time Magazine? Sure, no way they'd be expressing the view of media giant Time-Warner.

bltrocker said @ 2:48am GMT on 24th Jan
You really think he is a good guy?

"Let's not forget Dotcom is a convicted thief and insider trader who has served jail time in Germany. Germany's Manager Magazin reported (in German) he was convicted of computer fraud and handling stolen goods in 1998. He had broken into corporate PABX systems and had also stolen telephone calling cards. He was given a probationary sentence of two years.

Three years later he was convicted of insider trading in Germany after he pumped up the price of an auction website letsbuyit by suggesting he was going to buy it and then dumping it for a profit of US$1.5 million without following through on his promise. He spent over 5 months in jail."

sanepride said @ 3:14am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Underrated]
I wouldn't call Dotcom a 'good guy' but one thing for sure is that the authorities couldn't have wished for a better 'bad guy'.

structured_spirits said @ 3:23am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Insightful]
I could give a fuck if he's a "good" guy. I really don't care very much if he's a white collar criminal either, he's about on par with guys like Romney if you ask me. I know he's not a US citizen and that he was never in this country to break our laws. Let New Zealand or Germany arrest him if he's a criminal and pay to try him. I see absolutely no benefit to the American people for the US justice department to spend possibly millions of dollars to extradite, try, and imprison him so that their rich criminal hollywoood media companies, who are probably also run by criminals just like Dotcom, can possibly maybe make a little more on their bottom line, assuming people will actually start buying instead of downloading somewhere else, which is stupid. I resent the US government being used a muscle in a turf war, especially when they're used so badly. This whole thing is bullshit.

lsdbeta said @ 4:46am GMT on 24th Jan
*couldn't

bltrocker said @ 7:08am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:-1 WTF]
Meh. Your language is a bit excessive for the content of this post, I think. I really just thought it was funny how the fatso lived like an evil nerd-king. It would be hilarious if he was tried and eventually won his case because of a badass lawyer team. It could set a huge precedent and blow up in the entertainment industry's face.

Omegaphobic said @ 8:09am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:2 Underrated]
-1 referring to anyone as 'the fatso'. I guess you're just one of those people that calls your significant other 'the cunt', right?

Garr123 said @ 10:41am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:-1 WTF]
but he's extremely fat. it's an apt description.

Omegaphobic said @ 10:49am GMT on 24th Jan
There is a difference between referring to someone as 'extremely fat' and 'the fatso'. I hope you will be able to understand this if you give it sufficient thought.

Omegaphobic said @ 10:51am GMT on 24th Jan
PS, just to clarify... I've just realised I applied the -1 to the wrong comment by bltrocker, I didn't actually take any exception to the comment above where he quoted from the article.

assbastard said @ 8:40pm GMT on 24th Jan
"Fatso" is a derogatory term. It's like saying "Lard-ass" or "The Blimp" to describe him. Or "Garr123, who fucks cows in retrospect" to describe you.

Garr123 said @ 3:05pm GMT on 26th Jan
i didn't realize SE was super sensitive about calling a fat duck a fat duck.

Nihil said @ 2:06pm GMT on 24th Jan
Apples and oranges. A more apt comparison would be referring to a very despicable woman as "the cunt".

dreamingzephyr said @ 2:50pm GMT on 24th Jan
He's one of those people that calls SEer's wives fat.

Naruki said @ 3:04pm GMT on 24th Jan
Are they?

bltrocker said @ 3:36pm GMT on 24th Jan [Score:-1 WTF]
Really? You're ragging on me for referring to a jerk by one of their negative traits? We aren't talking about some nice person with Parkinson's that i called "the Parkinson's guy" here. If I call someone by a label, I MEAN for it to be demeaning. Thanks for the scolding, though.

Thin skin, man.

assbastard said @ 7:10pm GMT on 24th Jan
See, as someone that's been 525lbs and is now 165lbs lighter and counting, fuck you, cunt-waffle.

yasha said @ 7:53am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Underrated]
the government is basically saying "even though he's not in america, dotcom stole hundreds of millions of dollars from us entities. so we are arresting him."

you say "dude! he's never been here! you can't apply our law."

but i say "if we can't arrest him, what can we do?" this is probably the more important question in the modern era. because with the growth of the interwebs it's just gonna get easier for folks to perpetrate massive theft against our interests from overseas. and if we can't arrest him, then we can only use military force or let someone fuck us over.

and we're the usa . . . a nation that is pretty dedicated to the principle that we fuck over others, and shall never be fucked upon.

so basically your argument reduces to "invade nz to get dotcom." which sucks.

(this is a jokey way of making a serious point)

(also, i bet there is some sort of international copyright convention nz is a party to that actually gives us standing to go get the guy. otherwise nz wouldn't do extradition or whatever)

papango said @ 8:50am GMT on 24th Jan
NZ and the US have treaties, so it was NZ police who went out and arrested him. Which is great news for gang member and armed meth addict Tifiga Atanoa, who is on the run from firearms and drug charges and has declared his intention to not be taken alive.

Ronin.ca said @ 7:37pm GMT on 24th Jan
Aye, there was nothing else for them to be doing that day...

DuncmanG said @ 5:45pm GMT on 24th Jan
Yeah, I would guess there were also international copyright and IP laws involved. That being said, one article I read said that there was money being transferred in and out of accounts in the US and that the many accounts were being used for money laundering. If you open an account in the US and use it for business, then the appropriate laws are applicable to you.

Ronin.ca said @ 7:49pm GMT on 24th Jan
But doesn't money laundering have a specific meaning?

I mean, basically he was saying "we do this (provide you with ad space/cloud storage), you pay us to do this, the method of payment is cheques, transfers to this account. I live in NZ, so I will transfer the money to where I live in order to use it to buy stupid things".

Is that laundering?

backSLIDER said @ 3:52am GMT on 25th Jan
If you run it through bank accounts so that you don't have to pay taxes it's either money laundering or "money management" depending on if you know what your money guy is going or not.

Didel said @ 3:28am GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Underrated]
I knew that guy looked familiar and now I know from where, the Gumball rallies. Jesus, I remember reading about him and hearing about him from that, and all indications were that he was grand chief douchebag number uno.

Also, he's worth millions upon millions, and he sits in front of a computer for days just so he can be top of a leader board for Modern Warfare. I almost feel sorry for the guy (if I hadn't heard of his douchebaggery from years before)

Cakkafracle said @ 5:01am GMT on 24th Jan

MEGACAR

anyone remember that site? from like 1999

that was him

lilmookieesquire said @ 5:21am GMT on 24th Jan
Never heard of this guy and I'm quite content to stay that way.

madpride said @ 7:23am GMT on 24th Jan
Homosexuals are the victims of the paranormal waves.
See their palms. Note: In this case, PYRO-ENERGEN is effective only when used during early childhood or as early before homosexuality fully manifests.

For gays (homosexual man), their left hand fingers are usually longer than the other.

For lesbians (homosexual woman), their right hand fingers are usually longer than the left.

http://www.pyroenergen.com/causes.htm

madpride said @ 7:39am GMT on 24th Jan

Operating the Pyro Nerve Stimulator Without a Battery

GordonGuano said @ 8:06am GMT on 24th Jan
He also sucked on Dancing With The Stars.

spazm said @ 12:04pm GMT on 24th Jan
At least he keeps his lawn mowed.

Starjump said @ 9:35pm GMT on 24th Jan
looks like a computer generated image to me...

herra turpa said @ 2:24pm GMT on 24th Jan
i think this is the rich fat white guy that comes and eats the earth. that Daffy (Robert Carlyle) talks about in the movie The Beach, just before he kills him self...

"Viruses, Richard! Cancers! The big, chunky charlie's eating up the whole world! Down on the beach! Down on the street! Pay them in dollars and fuck their daughters!"

danshyu said @ 7:01pm GMT on 24th Jan [Score:-4 WTF]
I don't give a rat's ass about what he might have done. He should goto jail for being fat.

assbastard said @ 7:11pm GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Funny]
As someone who was REALLY fat and is now just kinda fat and still losing weight, fuck you, cockmoneky.

spazm said @ 7:36pm GMT on 24th Jan
As a regular body type kinda guy I sympathize with your thoughts.

sherlock said @ 7:52pm GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Funny]
As an extraordinarily skinny guy, I find assbastard's thoughts hilarious.

assbastard said @ 8:15pm GMT on 24th Jan
What exactly, pray-tell, do you mean by that?

mechanical contrivance said @ 1:19am GMT on 25th Jan
As someone who's also very skinny, I find being fat unrelatable.

bltrocker said @ 8:50pm GMT on 24th Jan
See, as someone that's been cunt-cupcakes and is now cunt-waffle and counting, fuck you, you unwashed rat's ass.

assbastard said @ 10:53pm GMT on 24th Jan
When I say cunt-waffle, I mean Belgian, with butter and syrup. Nice and crispy with just the hint of girl-cum.

happiest_sadist said @ 9:29am GMT on 25th Jan
YOU STAY AWAY from my goddammt breakfast!!

happiest_sadist said @ 9:58pm GMT on 24th Jan
Dijkstra disagrees.

Ronin.ca said @ 7:34pm GMT on 24th Jan [Score:2 Interesting]
My fave bit of smear on him was on the day of the raid.

The first reports were that he "barricaded" himself in a room with a gun.

This brings to mind hastily thrown together mounds of furniture and a guy in his underwear (a la "Cops") waving a gun around and screaming "You'll never take me alive copper!!".

What actually happened was he freaked and ran into his saferoom. In the safe room was a (how meta!) safe, which was open, which contained a shotgun (which was probably, though no one has proven this yet, illegal). There is no evidence that it was pointed at anyone. There is no evidence he touched it. The crown lawyers concede this (there is some debate about what it was loaded with - his defence lawyers say rubber bullets, the crown says buckshot). This tidbit was buried in boring court procedural stuff.

So the vast majority of the NZ public probably has an image of a guy waving a gun in the faces of the valiant cops.

Now, aside from this being factually incorrect (a small detail in the modern comms war world) I'm personally not sure how I'd react if my house was ground and air assaulted by these guys, plus normal cops, plus guys in FBI jackets (one assumes - oddly the police haven't released photos of the FBI guys - that would mess up the optics some eh?)... so the fat (because EVERY comment on him dwells on his size), geeky (OMG HE PLAYS VIDEOGAMES snicker), guy with lots of cars (yes, we get it, tall poppy syndrome), WHO WAS MOST ASSUREDLY NOT BORN HERE IN NEW ZEALAND (Fucking foreigners) got scared when men with guns stormed his house via the ground and from helos.

If my day went like "Hmm.. pr0n... then coffee.. then I think I'll play modern warfare... hmm what's the weather like.. HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARMED DUDES!!!" it is entirely possible that I'd run and hide or piss my pants, or a charming mix of both.

chold_numa said @ 10:25pm GMT on 24th Jan
Well, who owns the newspapers? I think they might have more than a little interest in painting this one way or another. Also, reporters are lazy/overworked and may just take police at their word. Editors, with a specific agenda (or instructions to slant things a certain way) get to 'correct' an article before it goes to press.

Ronin.ca said @ 10:29pm GMT on 24th Jan
Yep. And the newspapers here are basically all owned by one company. (except for the Otago Daily Times, but the less said about that pile of offal the better)

Mikhail_16 said @ 8:12pm GMT on 24th Jan [Score:1 Interesting]
In related news, I'll just leave this here:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2011/111221airvinyl

https://plus.google.com/u/0/111314089359991626869/posts/HQJxDRiwAWq

Omegaphobic said @ 8:55pm GMT on 24th Jan
It's really not a big step from corporations buying government forces to do their enforcement to the cyberpunk vision of corporations fielding their own armed forces to directly enforce their financial interests. Yay future!

mwoody said @ 10:16pm GMT on 24th Jan
He made a fortune off the copyrighted work of other people. Fuck him in the darkest part of his ass.

theRed said @ 7:30am GMT on 26th Jan