Leaseweb has wiped all Megaupload servers | Hacker News Reader

Leaseweb has wiped all Megaupload servers

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I was under the impression that the megaupload servers weren't paid for after Kim's assets got frozen. Leaseweb was forced to keep the data for the duration of the investigation, and had to eat the losses. My guess is that Leaseweb reached the point where they just want to cut their losses and move on. I highly doubt Leaseweb wiped the Megaupload servers "just because".

This looks like an attempt by Kim to create outrage and bad PR for Leaseweb.

Disagree.

Let's say you are accused of robbing a convenience store. The police take the security footage, review it, and then erase it. According to everyone that saw the tape, you did it, and perhaps they even retain a few seconds of footage that shows something like a coat that you own.

Would you think it fair that one party gets to use evidence to convict you, that you yourself are not allowed to see, or use for your own defense?

What if the police had to keep the convenience store closed until the trial? I believe that's a more accurate analogy.

The convenience store owner would be furious about the lost business from having to shutter the store for months or years, watching as formerly faithful customers just walk on by.

Your analogy still does not resolve why only one party in the trial gets to see the evidence in its entirety before it is destroyed.

Why would the defense (i.e. the owner of the data) not have the same opportunity as the prosecution to review their own material?

The only counter-argument that I can see is that Mega should continue paying their hosting bills for as long as the government wants to drag the trial on for. Which very well was a possible intent from the start. In which case, the entire thing seems like a government strong-arm, of which I am not in favor.

My point was to translate the lost opportunity costs of the data storage into more concrete terms. Im not trying to make any legal commentary.

Leaseweb isn't closed. They just had to store some servers. They could just turn them off, put them in storage, then sue law enforcement or the DOJ equivalent for the opportunity cost and storage costs. That's not an accurate analogy at all.

> then sue law enforcement or the DOJ equivalent for the opportunity cost and storage costs

Does suing the government ever actually work?

(Honest question, I'm not an American and I've only seen people try to sue in high-profile cases like PRISM, which never seems to get them anywhere)

Yes, Henry Ford did it in the 1950's to recoup the losses after the Allies bombed his tank making factories in Nazi Germany and Axis controlled territory.

There are certain laws in place to keep people from willy-nilly suing the government, but there are situations where it is possible to sue them and sometimes even win. (not sure about this case in particular, anyone want to weigh in?)

Do you have any source for this trial? I can't seem to find any trace of it when googling. Also Henry Ford died in 1947 and had cerebral issues before that, so if the trial did happen in the 50s it was either brought by his successors or Ford Motor Company.

My mistake, I contributed factually inaccurate information. Thanks for the help!

"1946: Ford sues the allies for damages done to his factories in Dresden during the infamous bombing, and wins compensation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ford_Motor_Company </br> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_Wa...

Yes this is done all the time.

Turning them off might not be an option. Disks that are encrypted would them become unreadable when turned off.

Disks that become unreadable when they lose power aren't called disks, they're called RAM.

With which encryption software?

GMemcachePG

How many servers? How many HDDs? How much of Leaseweb's "digital floorspace" were they unable to use because of this case?

According to this it was 630 servers with pentabytes of data. I'm sure keeping those idle was a significant loss for Leaseweb.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240179/LeaseWeb_wipe...

Not even the servers, just the hard drives. No reason to store anything else, right?

A better (but still not perfect) analogy would have been that the police cordoned off a section of the store and no one was allowed to take anything from or put anything on the shelves. The store is still open and people can shop but can't buy any of the items in the 'special' area.

Without a court order to keep the servers accessible and running they had every right to delete them (since they own the machines). One would think the prosecution would have had that order in place just so the defendant couldn't say there was no way to prove his innocence

In this case, the videotape also contains a lot of peoples' personal files that they were hoping to get back one day, maybe.

(Pre-emptive edit: I'm not saying the host should have to take losses for this; the investigators should have been responsible for paying for/backing up the 3rd party data.)

More analogy, what if it was one of those storage space services and one customer rented half the storage units to store other people's stuff, then got arrested and no longer paid for the storage units. And the storage units were gold-plated and cooled and cost a fixed amount a minute they're used.

There shouldn't need to be any bad PR for leaseweb.. they need to do what they must do. The bad PR should be for the american operation to shut this down.. now evidence is lost in the case. Of course there doesn't seem to be a real case going, I think they are satisfied with the destruction caused already.

I doubt it. They could've at least give a warning "hey if you don't way us within the next 10 days we're going to delete everything".

I'm sure they expected the backlash, too, if they were going to do it without warning. So this looks like they were forced to do it in some way.

What losses? We talk about data here. The disks used were not available for future business, that are only potential losses, not a further and further amount of high costs piling up. Besides, in which state is it legal to destroy evidence, especially before the trial?

A very good friend of mine is high up the management tree at Ocom (parent company of Leaseweb) and told me they wiped the servers 2 weeks after he got arrested because there were no requests from the dutch government to seize the servers. It's standard policy for Leaseweb to wipe servers 2 weeks after the account is closed and my guess is that Mr. Dotcom knew this very well.

I don't believe you, I just spend the last 30 minutes looking through all the legal, privacy, terms etc of lease web and NO where does it warn you that data will be kept for 2 weeks after the closure of an account before its deleted.

But apparently monthly backups are kept for 2 years.

I bet Leaseweb wants to cover their ass incase they got in trouble for what ever was on the drives.

Kim DotCom seems to agree that they were wiped a while ago:

https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/347346908462841856

Huh, what's the Dutch government have to do with this case? Did I miss something?

Leaseweb is a Dutch company. They must listen to Dutch police.

"They informed us TODAY that servers were deleted on February 1st, 2013." https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/347346908462841856

Huh, so the evidence against Mega/Dotcom was already gone since February? Why didn't they say anything?

How far was the case at that time?

While LeaseWeb should've given some advance warning (that would've been reasonable, considering Mega was probably one of their biggest customers), the destruction of all this data is on the US gov's hand, obviously.

Sounds like spoliation to me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoliation_of_evidence

> The spoliation inference is a negative evidentiary inference that a finder of fact can draw from a party's destruction of a document or thing that is relevant to an ongoing or reasonably foreseeable civil or criminal proceeding: the finder of fact can review all evidence uncovered in as strong a light as possible against the spoliator and in favor of the opposing party.

So will the case simply be dismissed now, like Daniel Ellsberg case was dismissed when the court found out the government was illegally wiretapping him?

What were they supposed to do? They filed motions a long time ago that the cost of simply being forced to store a lot of data for a client who couldn't pay them (because their funds had been frozen) was incredibly high.

The government wasn't going to let them sell the servers to dotcom, and they had a business to run.

And maybe at the end of all this, the government will get a conviction. Maybe.

I can't imagine that this is a big deal, even though Kim Dotcom is trying to make it one. His lawyers have had ample time to copy anything they needed, and for trial purposes a backup of every file is not necessary. A copy of their database containing names and descriptions of files, along with their actual code for the site, should be more than adequate to present a defense that they aren't criminally liable for copyright infringement.

He may have had dreams of resurrecting MegaUpload as a business, but any hope of that was gone within a few days of the domain seizure. That's why they seize domains - it doesn't matter whether they win or lose at trial or drop the charges. They get to give target sites the death penalty long before the owners ever set foot in a courtroom.

You don't seriously believe that do you? PirateBay domain has been blocked from the UK but it it still accessible if you know how or through a different domain names. KickAssTorrent (kat.ph) domain name was recently seized by Phillipine authorities but it was back up within hours. A simple Google search will point you to the new domain name, in this modern age the domain name really doesn't mean that much once you have the brand established.

http://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-domain-seized-after-...

There's enough press about megaupload that most people who would care could find it at any other domain chosen. If he does reopen it, I hope he doesn't forego the opportunity to also register "thesiteformerlyknownasmegaupload.com".

It's not like we don't have at least one case study in what you can do if the name you normally do business with is no longer available to you...

Something tells me that, even if it still had its data and was free to operate again, MegaUpload would not get most of its previous users back (except perhaps to download their stuff and move it elsewhere). That is what I was saying. You take a site off the internet for a week, and in the minds of most people, it is gone forever.

Most likely so, but I haven't read any about any figures about exactly what percentage of MU users we "legitimate", storing personal or business documents/images/files etc vs videos, music and other questionable files.

If it's more of the latter, then I suspect the user base would largely be unaffected.

I think if you take a site off the internet for a week, in the minds of most people, it's a non-factor, since they didn't even notice.

This is a big deal, though - not for MegaUpload, but for the many people who used MegaUpload to host their files.

I can point to many computer games that were distributed through MegaUpload - perfectly legal games - that have now disappeared, at least from public view. (This might have been a bad idea - it was - but many of these games were made by inexperienced creators, and what's done is done.)

I can point to many computer games that were distributed through MegaUpload - perfectly legal games - that have now disappeared, at least from public view.

So they should just upload it somewhere else now, or through bittorrent. They certainly shouldn't have been using MU as a source control repository or as their only copy.

Apparently Carpathia just shoved Mega's HDD's (or maybe full racks?) into a warehouse instead of wiping them.

http://inagist.com/all/347346225932165120/

So how much trouble would it have been to spin the disks down, take them out and store them in a closet somewhere and tell Kim "We know you're having financial difficulties now but you can have them back for $X when some of your funds get unlocked"? It's not like his troubles were a secret. That would eliminate the majority of the daily cost of keeping the data online.

A lot.

They're undoubtedly in some sort of raid, so they're going to need to un-rack every device, pull every single drive, label its position within the raid set, pack them properly, then store in a temperature controlled environment. Then follow along, slotting new drives they purchased in every single slot, then re-rack the whole device.

All in the hope that one day Kim will 1) Win and 2) decide it's worth it to get the data back for a business model & product he's left behind.

You don't need to store the hard drives in a temperature controlled environment. Look at the range they can exist in when turned off...

Not only that, but I imagine that even if a couple drives died in the mean time, it wouldn't be a big loss.

Isn't that tampering with evidence?

Different jurisdictions. The court case is in the US but the servers are in the Netherlands.

That doesn't make it not "tampering with evidence" it just makes it unlikely to be legally actionable.

that's what you get when you store data "in the cloud"...

And the physical seizure is what you get when you store data "on bare metal"... I agree that cloud services have their risks, but it's hardly relevant here.

Well, if you stop paying for the "cloud" storage you're using, I don't know what else you could expect...

I think OP was referring to the people who used Megaupload to store data, not the company itself. But I could be wrong.

You may be right! In that case, that's the risk you take when you decide to store the only copy of your important data on a service which is known for offering tons of pirated content (Megaupload appeared among the top results when searching for movies, tv shows, cracks and so on), run by a man who "was convicted of 11 counts of computer fraud, 10 counts of data espionage, and an assortment of other charges" [1]. If you really don't want to have a secondary copy, you should at least inform yourself about the company you're trusting your data with.

That said, I'm sorry for everyone that lost their data, but it's really not different than your hard drive failing without a backup.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom

I was referring to both, Megaupload and their customers. The customers could have read the ToS that contained no garantees whatsoever that their data would be "safe" in any wax. And for Megaupload using a 3rd party to provide most of their business, it's the same more or less.

Aren't the Leaseweb servers just a mirror of the US servers? Being an international hoster it wouldn't make much sense to host individual files on just one server.

Also while this sure sucks for people who had files hosted there what was Leaseweb supposed to do? Can't really fault them for wiping servers that nobody paid for. Also this prevents them getting dragged into any legal proceedings like when the proscuter decides he needs more data for his case.

Looks like it was the only place European users data was stored. https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/347373843767238658

I haven't been following his case in too much detail;

I understand that some people used Megaupload for genuine cloud storage, even though it was a small fraction.

I have noticed Kim is always talking about wanting his data back, can anybody tell me why?

I thought some of the evidence was conversations essentially about enticing people to upload more (pirated) content, what exactly was on the Leaseweb servers that would help Kim out?

I'd always thought he would have wanted them wiped?

I'd always thought he would have wanted them wiped?

Maybe he did want it wiped, but didn't want it to look like it he wanted it wiped. Being able to go "They destroyed all the evidence, now I can never prove of my innocence" is a pretty nice PR card to play irregardless of the facts.

I hate to be "that guy" but "irregardless" is not actually a word. I have known some people to use the word ironically but that doesn't come across well in text.

regardless - without regard to

irrespective - without respect to

adding the prefix ir- and the suffix -less is doing the same thing twice, its a double negative.

Ha, there's even a wikipedia entry[1], I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless

You sure stepped up in spite of your distaste. The word has been in print since 1795? Yep, better chastise this guy!

Also, double negatives are common in many languages, and were common in English in the past. It's a relatively recent evolution that it's considered bad practice.

Additionally, there's no authority on words, so to speak. "Proper language" is a reflection of how people speak the language. Irregardless isn't going anywhere, it's in widespread use.

Why would you think I'm chastising rather than educating?

You're reading snark where none was intended, and responding in kind.

Double negatives are a problem when you're actually trying to use a single negative which is the case here.

I wasn't offering myself up as an authority on words, I'm pretty bad at both spelling and grammar.

Also, as a Brit living in the US I'm also well aware of different uses of words/spellings and agree that the point of language is communication, and irregardless doesn't cause confusion, as it is obvious what someone means when they use the word.

The whole point of prefacing my comment with, "I hate to be that guy", was to suggest that I'm not actually that guy to soften any perceived insult/criticism.

It reminds me of the old short "The Parlor":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmDPdCzCfFM

He is playing the "Megaupload is a legit service with legit users" card. And that may be true for some percentage of his paying customers.

Fighting for his customers data makes him look good and the DOJ/Leaseweb look bad. What's not to like about his strategy?

The hypocrisy?

Maybe, but that is an industry-wide phenomenon.

Kim is just stretching the limits while other companies keep a lower profile extracting money from the users illegal storage and bandwidth needs.

He would have liked to use all the non-infringing content that was there as evidence that Megaupload was a genuine cloud storage company.

completely uninformed here, but wouldn't having the servers wiped be better for the defense? no evidence for him, but none for the prosecutor either.

The prosecutors already had copied whatever evidence they needed from the servers.

And he's now unable to prove that the "evidence" isn't faked, since he can't access the servers himself and verify the contents.

At the very least it should make a good case for an appeal.

I can't believe Kim Dotcom stored the data on only Leaseweb's servers. I hope he has backup copies or mirrors from another storage provider.

Agreed. Normally server companies backup to tape. Where are the tapes?

I don't believe that's been common practice in quite some time.

Why is "without warning" in quotes? Did he get a warning but chose to ignore it? Didn't they send a warning?

I'm also pretty wary about believing wat mr. Dotcom says without a different side of the story.

He claims that they informed him today that the data was deleted in February.

https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/347346908462841856

Yeah, not sure I believe him about that.

The irony is that Leaseweb's slogan is "reliable hosting"

And they are extremely reliable. If you pay your bills. Happy Leaseweb customer for over 5 years.

Pretty sure the reliability applies only to paying customers. MegaUpload's account wasn't active - what were they to do? In a perfect world the US government would be compensating them, but like all businesses, they had to make the best decision given the circumstances (Mega's funds frozen, potential legal liability in giving data, daily cost to keep data)

I doubt they guarantee reliability even after you stop paying for it.

I firsthandedly had dealings with Kimdotcom and I hope he gets everything he deserves. He is pondscum.

Was partly my own fault (for being naive) however he still broke his word!

Such big service without backups? Can't believe.

No backups?

Do CDNs back up customer data?

But, encryption!

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