by Perri Lamanna
Old News: Megaupload, the Hong-Kong based file sharing site, was shutdown by the US Justice Department in January of this year (2012) for operating a service dedicated to the illegal sharing of copyright material.
Along with Megaupload went the companies hosting the servers, and the data being shared. Carpathia and Cogent are two of the hosting companies that were affected; Cogent's stock dropped sharply, and has only recently began to recover. Carpathia meanwhile denied in a press release ever having access to the Megaupload servers, yet, on the contrary, were creating a website (http://www.megaretrieval.com/) to assist "lawful" Megaupload users to retrieve their data. A clear knee-jerk reaction to the U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride's statement that users whose data was not accessible contact the server hosting companies directly.
At this point, it looked like legit users' data was very possibly headed for mass deletion. Still, why would any legitimate user be worried about their data since the Megaupload FAQ clearly stated that users should keep copies of their files and that the site [Megaupload.com] services could be terminated at any time without prior notice... Does anyone read the FAQ anymore? Well, they should, but no one really does until something horrific happens. It's the same hindsight principal of doing hard drive backups religiously; there's always tomorrow.
New News: For the slackers and procrastinators who saved data on Megaupload servers, but failed to save a copy of their own (tisk, tisk, shame on you), you're very likely SOL.
The EFF (Electronic Frontiers Foundation), an organization protecting civil liberties in the digital world, went to court April 13th, defending the legit users' rights to their data. The judge differed a two week decision to lawyers representing the Motion Picture Association of America, Megaupload, at least one service user whose files are inaccessible, and... the hosting companies, Carpathia and Cogent.
The EFF defends that a system should be established that allows legitimate users to file for access to their data; a system that isn't easily implemented now that thousands of servers storing the data have been unplugged and shipped to a Virginia warehouse, according to the attorney for Carpathia Hosting.
The short of it; it's too costly for the hosting companies to maintain the servers, which they are not being paid to maintain any longer by Megaupload, and the MPAA lawyers, among however many other association lawyers looking out for their client's interests, don't believe any of the data should be given back to the users, as that it is likely copyright material hidden among seemingly innocuous files.
Next week marks the deadline for a decision... when the fate of gigabytes of data may or may not be marked for permanent deletion.
Old News: Megaupload, the Hong-Kong based file sharing site, was shutdown by the US Justice Department in January of this year (2012) for operating a service dedicated to the illegal sharing of copyright material.
Along with Megaupload went the companies hosting the servers, and the data being shared. Carpathia and Cogent are two of the hosting companies that were affected; Cogent's stock dropped sharply, and has only recently began to recover. Carpathia meanwhile denied in a press release ever having access to the Megaupload servers, yet, on the contrary, were creating a website (http://www.megaretrieval.com/) to assist "lawful" Megaupload users to retrieve their data. A clear knee-jerk reaction to the U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride's statement that users whose data was not accessible contact the server hosting companies directly.
At this point, it looked like legit users' data was very possibly headed for mass deletion. Still, why would any legitimate user be worried about their data since the Megaupload FAQ clearly stated that users should keep copies of their files and that the site [Megaupload.com] services could be terminated at any time without prior notice... Does anyone read the FAQ anymore? Well, they should, but no one really does until something horrific happens. It's the same hindsight principal of doing hard drive backups religiously; there's always tomorrow.
New News: For the slackers and procrastinators who saved data on Megaupload servers, but failed to save a copy of their own (tisk, tisk, shame on you), you're very likely SOL.
The EFF (Electronic Frontiers Foundation), an organization protecting civil liberties in the digital world, went to court April 13th, defending the legit users' rights to their data. The judge differed a two week decision to lawyers representing the Motion Picture Association of America, Megaupload, at least one service user whose files are inaccessible, and... the hosting companies, Carpathia and Cogent.
The EFF defends that a system should be established that allows legitimate users to file for access to their data; a system that isn't easily implemented now that thousands of servers storing the data have been unplugged and shipped to a Virginia warehouse, according to the attorney for Carpathia Hosting.
The short of it; it's too costly for the hosting companies to maintain the servers, which they are not being paid to maintain any longer by Megaupload, and the MPAA lawyers, among however many other association lawyers looking out for their client's interests, don't believe any of the data should be given back to the users, as that it is likely copyright material hidden among seemingly innocuous files.
Next week marks the deadline for a decision... when the fate of gigabytes of data may or may not be marked for permanent deletion.
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