US Justice Dep. Takes Down Megaupload, Anonymous Takes Down US Justice Dep.

[skydivingninja]

Fair enough. I get that. But hasn't Anonymous done this before? They've taken down government websites before, I think. I doubt this is the first time the government has heard of them.
[/quote

They have, but as the xkcd Harry posted pointed out (damn that Scot for stealing my thunder!), they're taking down posters put up by the government, which don't really have an impact on people who are actually doing stuff.  

@Bosk: they've done worse than this, and the government's already been on them.  There's an Internet security company (can't remember the name, my dad is on their mailing list) that has been pretty much destroyed by anonymous.  A bunch of financial info released to the public, and the e-mail of the CEO hacked.  They even changed the content of one of his apology e-mails to refer to themselves as "crazed sexual deviant lunatics" or something.

Looks like I'm the only one here who's on Anon's side.

It was none of America's business shutting down a company in a country on the other side of the world when all they had to do to block it was blacklist it in America.

I hope you guys enjoy your future under SOPA/PIPA. I have first hand experience with government-led internet censorship in Turkey, and I can tell you right away it's absolutely depressing not being able to go on YouTube or tons of other sites that generate and propagate culture. There's pretty much nothing differentiating MegaVideo from YouTube, YT is also full of copyrighted material. You're headed for a world where big brother will be breathing down your back all the time. I don't care what happens in America, but I don't like seeing the american government's greasy moneygrabbing hands feel up other countries.

You're confusing supporting Anon and supporting the closure of Megaupload.  It seems most here decry the closure,  but thing that Anon are a bunch of childish nimrods.  Their actions in prostest don't actually accomplish anything,  except maybe give our over-reactive government another reason to want to control our actions. 

This.  Anonymous are just a bunch of jerks 99% of the time.  And SOPA/PIPA haven't passed yet (THANK GOD).

[YtseBitsySpider]

the effect of shutting those site down for 24 hours was not to worry about how fast they'd be back up. how many people visit those sites daily for work related purposes......they disrupted millions upon millions of internet visits and traffic with what they did.

It was felt.
I'm sure.

I don't know if I agree with what they did/do.
Im just saying.

[Jaffa]

the effect of shutting those site down for 24 hours was not to worry about how fast they'd be back up. how many people visit those sites daily for work related purposes......they disrupted millions upon millions of internet visits and traffic with what they did.

It was felt.
I'm sure.

I don't mean to say that it wasn't felt.  What I mean to say is, it's like shooting a giant in the eye with a squirt gun: you'll blind him for a while, and then he'll just be really pissed off and have a good reason to step on you. 

[Kosmo]

I'm definitely against SOPA with all my heart, but this attack seems really unnecessary and just plain dumb.

[rumborak]

Coming in late, just saying that the shutdown of Megaupload is perfectly reasonable. It is the single biggest facilitator of illegal downloads there is. Anonymous DOS's the DOJ site only shows how Anonymous is comprised of anarchist idiots who want things for free.
And on a connected side note, this way of dealing with illegal downloads is way better than the SOPA/PIPA approach. It's sad and all too telling when people here don't make that connection.

rumborak

[Kotowboy]

I read online that they're not passing this bill until they can come to a solution " Everyone can agree on ".

[Sigz]

Out of curiosity, how did they shut it down? Isn't it based in Hong Kong?

[El Barto]

Coming in late, just saying that the shutdown of Megaupload is perfectly reasonable. It is the single biggest facilitator of illegal downloads there is. Anonymous DOS's the DOJ site only shows how Anonymous is comprised of anarchist idiots who want things for free.
And on a connected side note, this way of dealing with illegal downloads is way better than the SOPA/PIPA approach. It's sad and all too telling when people here don't make that connection.

rumborak

I agree with your second point.  This is a better solution than SOPA/PIPA.  Don't get your first point that being the a facilitator earns them the wrath of the DOJ.  As I said before,  if they were honoring DMCA takedown requests,  then I don't see where the problem is.  They're an enterprise with legal and legitimate uses,  and they're (apparently) complying with DMCA. 

[YtseBitsySpider]

Out of curiosity, how did they shut it down? Isn't it based in Hong Kong?

There are servers stateside as well.

[Heretic]

Anonymous's attack isn't going to change anything about the government, their policies, or anything of the like, so really, it wasn't much of a success. If they wanted to make a statement, this wasn't the right way to do it, really.

Megaupload was a pretty good site, though, sad to see it and its founders and whatnot in hot water.

[antigoon]

Hey well I'm glad there was a trial and everythi...oh. There wasn't a trial? Heh. USA all the way.

[ReaPsTA]

Anonymous just took things to a scary place.

[Fiery Winds]

I read that plenty of people are pissed because they can no longer access their personal, legitimate files anymore.

[rumborak]

I highly question the existence of legitimate file sharing on MegaUpload. That whole place existed almost solely for the purpose of illegal file sharing and the site owners knew it.

rumborak

[Implode]

But it's true that a lot of people used it as a sort of cloud storage.

[Fiery Winds]

Obviously it's impossible to figure out the percentage that was legitimate, but there are a variety of uses for MegaUpload that are completely lawful.  Here are just a few of those uses from this article on Arstechnica.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/megaupload-wasnt-just-for-pirates-angry-users-out-of-luck-for-now.ars

[Implode]

https://gizmodo.com/5878287/filesonic-just-killed-itself-by-disabling-file-sharing

In what looks like a preventive measure in reaction to the Megaupload shutdown, FileSonic has disabled all file sharing capabilities and is now nothing more than a personal storage solution. It looks like the Feds’ tactic of going after the big fish in Megaupload is beginning to scare other file sharing sites into shutting down.

Along with FileSonic, Uploaded.to seems to have shuttered its services to the US as well. If committing suicide (or honorably dying like a samurai depending on your perspective) is the trend of these file sharing sites, the shutdown of Megaupload will always be remembered as a dark, dark day for the Internet. Sad. We’ll probably see how other file sharing sites like RapidShare, MediaFire react to this news soon.

[Sigz]

Wow.

[MetalManiac666]

Curious to see how this goes down.

[KevShmev]

I'll be curious to see if youtube reacts to this by taking down tons of copyrighted material that is up there.  It seems like, with them, they'll take it down when/if asked by the artists, record companies, etc. ask them to, but otherwise they look the other way on most of it.

[MetalManiac666]

I don't think Youtube has the man power to go through the videos hosted on their site like that.

[Implode]

I'm curious how they do it though. I've had videos deemed copyrighted pretty much instantaneously after uploading them.

[MetalManiac666]

I'm curious how they do it though. I've had videos deemed copyrighted pretty much instantaneously after uploading them.

Record/film/etc. companies?

[Ħ]

RIP Megavideo.  I mean, this is a good thing, right?  If the government's going to target something, it should be sites like Megaupload, Pirate Bay, and other sites that really aren't moderated for illegal material.

[Gadough]

RIP Megavideo.  I mean, this is a good thing, right?  If the government's going to target something, it should be sites like Megaupload, Pirate Bay, and other sites that really aren't moderated for illegal material.

I can't help but think that there's bigger issues they should be concerned with at the moment.

[Ħ]

RIP Megavideo.  I mean, this is a good thing, right?  If the government's going to target something, it should be sites like Megaupload, Pirate Bay, and other sites that really aren't moderated for illegal material.

I can't help but think that there's bigger issues they should be concerned with at the moment.

Well yeah, of course, but just taking this issue in isolation, I don't think the government is unjustified.

[rumborak]

I really have very little problem with these shutdowns. MegaUpload actively looked the other way in order to make the most money on the illegal file sharing. RapidShare isn't really too different.
Are a few people with legit files on those servers inconvenienced? Sure. But you would think they have a backup copy.

rumborak

[BlobVanDam]

https://gizmodo.com/5878287/filesonic-just-killed-itself-by-disabling-file-sharing

In what looks like a preventive measure in reaction to the Megaupload shutdown, FileSonic has disabled all file sharing capabilities and is now nothing more than a personal storage solution. It looks like the Feds’ tactic of going after the big fish in Megaupload is beginning to scare other file sharing sites into shutting down.

Along with FileSonic, Uploaded.to seems to have shuttered its services to the US as well. If committing suicide (or honorably dying like a samurai depending on your perspective) is the trend of these file sharing sites, the shutdown of Megaupload will always be remembered as a dark, dark day for the Internet. Sad. We’ll probably see how other file sharing sites like RapidShare, MediaFire react to this news soon.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[rumborak]

I'm curious how they do it though. I've had videos deemed copyrighted pretty much instantaneously after uploading them.

It's run by Google, so I wouldn't be surprised if they provide a kinda "alert" feature that notifies a certain party when a video with particular keywords gets uploaded. So, the MPAA or whatever has a few people employed who check out those alerted videos and flag, them if necessary. Zero effort for Google, and they stay clean too.

rumborak

[emindead]

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

In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #Megaupload were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (https://goo.gl/A7wUZ)

I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.

"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak.

Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.

"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."
If this is true, holy shit!

[AcidLameLTE]

Yeah, I saw that.

Seems like a load of nonsense, to be honest.

I mean, they could have been releasing something called Megakey but I highly doubt that it was the reason they were shut down.

[rumborak]

Leave it to the internet to find a conspiracy.

Roooon Paaauulll!!!

rumborak

[Sigz]

ROONN PAAULLLL

[Dark Castle]

ROONN PAAULLLL

RAWN PAWL 2012

[Fluffy Lothario]

I've taken to downloading quite a few live bootlegs in recent times. Between Megaupload disappearing and Filesonic folding, I've clicked on so many dead links in the past week, I've lost count.