Judge Awards Sony With Visitor IDs of PS3 Hacker's Website

[teknoarcanist]

The first subpoena, to obtain the IPs of those who went to the jailbreak site and downloaded files -- explicitly for the purposes of proving that people did go to the site and download files -- sounds tentatively reasonable, and I can understand a judge allowing it.

The second set, allowing the subpoena of information about youtube commenters, is more of a legal sticking-point for me. If someone posts on Youtube and chooses on their account not to publicly reveal their email and other information, doesn't that directly imply an expectation of privacy? More importantly: if the post is completely innocuous (ie, "32 people are ps3 fanboys"), in what way is it even relevant to the case?

Under what legal precedent does a judge grant a private corporation access to personal information of a broad public body, in exception to an implied expectation of privacy, with little or no relation to the case being argued?

 

[kurokenshi]

The first subpoena, to obtain the IPs of those who went to the jailbreak site and downloaded files -- explicitly for the purposes of proving that people did go to the site and download files -- sounds tentatively reasonable, and I can understand a judge allowing it.

The second set, allowing the subpoena of information about youtube commenters, is more of a legal sticking-point for me. If someone posts on Youtube and chooses on their account not to publicly reveal their email and other information, doesn't that directly imply an expectation of privacy? More importantly: if the post is completely innocuous (ie, "32 people are ps3 fanboys"), in what way is it even relevant to the case?

Under what legal precedent does a judge grant a private corporation access to personal information of a broad public body, in exception to an implied expectation of privacy, with little or no relation to the case being argued?

In agreement with you on both points!

 

[Low Key]

Sony is gonna have a hard time with the lawyers of those websites and Hotz's ISP subpoena or not. I don't know if they'll need or get half of the info they are looking for.

 

[binvjoh]

Wait, is that legal?

 

[Saelune]

As a curious person who may check out sites but not be in favor of them, this is something that is not cool.

 

[JDKJ]

The first subpoena, to obtain the IPs of those who went to the jailbreak site and downloaded files -- explicitly for the purposes of proving that people did go to the site and download files -- sounds tentatively reasonable, and I can understand a judge allowing it.

The second set, allowing the subpoena of information about youtube commenters, is more of a legal sticking-point for me. If someone posts on Youtube and chooses on their account not to publicly reveal their email and other information, doesn't that directly imply an expectation of privacy? More importantly: if the post is completely innocuous (ie, "32 people are ps3 fanboys"), in what way is it even relevant to the case?

Under what legal precedent does a judge grant a private corporation access to personal information of a broad public body, in exception to an implied expectation of privacy, with little or no relation to the case being argued?

I'm sure that if you read YouTube's policies, buried somewhere in all the legalese is the part that says they will notify you if you're the subject of a subpoena they receive and give you an opportunity to raise whatever legal challenges to the subpoena you may have and if they don't hear back from you or have no objections of their own, they'll produce the information requested. Kinda like they do for take-downs: they'll take-down and then they'll notify you of the take-down and give you an opportunity to establish that you, not the take-down requestor, are the rightful copyright holder. If you can establish that you are the rightful copyright holder, they'll restore the content.

How would Sony know the comment is completely innocuous if they don't ever receive it in response to their subpoena? A subpoena's kinda like a license to fish. Just because there's the possibility that you'll catch an under-sized fish, isn't a reason not to be granted the license. If you do catch an under-sized fish, the expectation is that you'll throw it back in the water and keep on fishing for the ones that aren't under-sized. What you can't ask for and/or won't get is a license for under-sized fish only.

 

[JDKJ]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

 

[teknoarcanist]

The first subpoena, to obtain the IPs of those who went to the jailbreak site and downloaded files -- explicitly for the purposes of proving that people did go to the site and download files -- sounds tentatively reasonable, and I can understand a judge allowing it.

The second set, allowing the subpoena of information about youtube commenters, is more of a legal sticking-point for me. If someone posts on Youtube and chooses on their account not to publicly reveal their email and other information, doesn't that directly imply an expectation of privacy? More importantly: if the post is completely innocuous (ie, "32 people are ps3 fanboys"), in what way is it even relevant to the case?

Under what legal precedent does a judge grant a private corporation access to personal information of a broad public body, in exception to an implied expectation of privacy, with little or no relation to the case being argued?

I'm sure that if you read YouTube's policies, buried somewhere in all the legalese is the part that says they will notify you if you're the subject of a subpoena they receive and give you an opportunity to raise whatever legal challenges to the subpoena you may have and if they don't hear back from you or have no objections of their own, they'll produce the information requested. Kinda like they do for take-downs: they'll take-down and then they'll notify you of the take-down and give you an opportunity to establish that you, not the take-down requestor, are the rightful copyright holder. If you can establish that you are the rightful copyright holder, they'll restore the content.

How would Sony know the comment is completely innocuous if they don't ever receive it in response to their subpoena? A subpoena's kinda like a license to fish. Just because there's the possibility that you'll catch an under-sized fish, isn't a reason not to be granted the license. If you do catch an under-sized fish, the expectation is that you'll throw it back in the water and keep on fishing for the ones that aren't under-sized. What you can't ask for and/or won't get is a license for under-sized fish only.

I wasn't talking about youtube giving up the ips under subpoena, which is only to be expected: I was asking, under what precedent does the judge even compel them to do that?

If Sony wants to file a subpoena to get the IP's of CERTAIN comments which they can DEMONSTRATE as being crucial to their case, fine.

But ALL the comments on one video? And the judge ALLOWED it?

Well now we're setting precedent for future potential abuse; and not necessarily by Sony, or even in this case.

And Sony will know a comment is innocuous because it's on youtube. Right there. Under the video. You can see it. The whole internet can see it. It's on youtube.

And no, that's not really what a subpoena is at all. A subpoena is legal compulsion for a party to produce specific evidence (which can include their own presence or compelled testimony) that you have demonstrated as being necessary -- or at least demonstrated as being potentially important -- to your case. You could subpoena records you've seen, but don't currently have -- or you could subpoena secret records, if you could demonstrate what you think they might contain, and why that might help your case.

But it's not a license to go hog-wild, and in fact a subpoena is usually turned down if the judge deems it to be to be a 'fishing expedition'. This is especially true in corporate trials: a company will typically file a 'motion to protect' on, say, financial records that aren't relevant to the case, just so the other side can't get in there and have carte blanche to snoop around.

My point is: you have to be able to show why it's important. You can't justify a subpoena by saying, "We might find something that justifies this subpoena." Dem dar's a circular logics.

And in this case, what's under dispute is the comment, which is publicly viewable. If a comment self-evidently has no bearing to Sony's case ("LOL I just farted" or "32 people are actually Kevin Butler in disguise") then they have no legal footing to go ahead and subpoena that commenter's address and phone number. It's not relevant, and it has no utility to the case.

The only possible justification I can think of would be to support their 'enough hackers were in California to grant us jurisdiction' argument, but even then, how does an innocuous comment illustrate a connection to the people who actually downloaded Geohot's jailbreak codes? It doesn't. Not on its own. Not unless Sony has some kind of legal alchemy in their pocket that can turn "LOL" into cause for reasonable suspicion.

 

[shadow skill]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

I said if they comply and the subpoenas are later found to be improper. Lawyers can and do fuck things up. The presence and knowledge of a legal team doesn't change that simple fact. It isn't the first time something like that was attempted. There was a recent case about porn downloaders where a lawyer tried to issue subpoenas without authorization. The man was definitely hoping no one would notice, thankfully people did notice. That stunt torpedoed the whole case.

 

[shadow skill]

The software isn't illegal. It's use is. So this actually has no valid reasoning.

Distributing it is. Manufacturing them is also illegal. Using it technically is not, it depends on what kind of circumvention it is and the item being circumvented. What does not make sense to me is how the creation of these tools is banned while their use is not, it is written in such a way that even with the infringement exception, the DMCA violation may still exist. Seems to depend on the court. I also cannot find anything that says that the possession of this kind of software is a copyright violation in and of itself. If that is the case then there would be no grounds for a civil suit for copyright infringement against someone who downloaded the tool, if I am understanding things correctly.

 

[JDKJ]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

I said if they comply and the subpoenas are later found to be improper. Lawyers can and do fuck things up. The presence and knowledge of a legal team doesn't change that simple fact. It isn't the first time something like that was attempted. There was a recent case about porn downloaders where a lawyer tried to issue subpoenas without authorization. The man was definitely hoping no one would notice, thankfully people did notice. That stunt torpedoed the whole case.

What you said was a whole lotta nonsense about "hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas" as if the Legal Departments at Google, YouTube, et al. are staffed by a bunch of gullible idiots who ain't never received a subpoena before.

 

[Illyasviel]

Well, thankfully, this thread is now actually on topic and talking about the actual subpeonas themselves instead of being some kind of ridiculous anti-Sony / corporate fearmongering / hysteria campaign.

 

[shadow skill]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

I said if they comply and the subpoenas are later found to be improper. Lawyers can and do fuck things up. The presence and knowledge of a legal team doesn't change that simple fact. It isn't the first time something like that was attempted. There was a recent case about porn downloaders where a lawyer tried to issue subpoenas without authorization. The man was definitely hoping no one would notice, thankfully people did notice. That stunt torpedoed the whole case.

What you said was a whole lotta nonsense about "hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas" as if the Legal Departments at Google, YouTube, et al. are staffed by a bunch of gullible idiots who ain't never received a subpoena before.

Yawn. Really, what does the competence of Google's legal staff have to do with the simple fact that they could be held liable if they complied with subpoenas that were issued in error for any reason? It also does not address the fact that Google are not the only ones being served subpoenas. Why don't you answer that instead of pretending I said that the staff at these companies are stupid etc.?

 

[JDKJ]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

I said if they comply and the subpoenas are later found to be improper. Lawyers can and do fuck things up. The presence and knowledge of a legal team doesn't change that simple fact. It isn't the first time something like that was attempted. There was a recent case about porn downloaders where a lawyer tried to issue subpoenas without authorization. The man was definitely hoping no one would notice, thankfully people did notice. That stunt torpedoed the whole case.

What you said was a whole lotta nonsense about "hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas" as if the Legal Departments at Google, YouTube, et al. are staffed by a bunch of gullible idiots who ain't never received a subpoena before.

Yawn. Really, what does the competence of Google's legal staff have to do with the simple fact that they could be held liable if they complied with subpoenas that were issued in error for any reason? It also does not address the fact that Google are not the only ones being served subpoenas. Why don't you answer that instead of pretending I said that the staff at these companies are stupid etc.?

Your theory that "Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties" only begins to have any credibility whatsoever if it is premised on the assumption that the recipients of those subpoenas are stupid enough to fall for that trick. That's the relevance of the competence and experience of the legal departments at those various corporations to your own theory. The fact that they are sophisticated and experienced in responding to subpoenas blows the likelihood of your theory to smithereens. But tinfoil hat conspiracy theories aren't usually valid. They're . . . well, just tinfoil hat conspiracies theories.

 

[shadow skill]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

I said if they comply and the subpoenas are later found to be improper. Lawyers can and do fuck things up. The presence and knowledge of a legal team doesn't change that simple fact. It isn't the first time something like that was attempted. There was a recent case about porn downloaders where a lawyer tried to issue subpoenas without authorization. The man was definitely hoping no one would notice, thankfully people did notice. That stunt torpedoed the whole case.

What you said was a whole lotta nonsense about "hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas" as if the Legal Departments at Google, YouTube, et al. are staffed by a bunch of gullible idiots who ain't never received a subpoena before.

Yawn. Really, what does the competence of Google's legal staff have to do with the simple fact that they could be held liable if they complied with subpoenas that were issued in error for any reason? It also does not address the fact that Google are not the only ones being served subpoenas. Why don't you answer that instead of pretending I said that the staff at these companies are stupid etc.?

Your theory that "Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties" only begins to have any credibility whatsoever if it is premised on the assumption that the recipients of those subpoenas are stupid enough to fall for that trick. That's the relevance of the competence and experience of the legal departments at those various corporations to your own theory. The fact that they are sophisticated and experienced in responding to subpoenas blows the likelihood of your theory to smithereens. But tinfoil hat conspiracy theories aren't usually valid. They're . . . well, just tinfoil hat conspiracies theories.

So it is entirely impossible that this is part of the strategy? Because no one has ever issued improper subpoenas in an effort to intimidate companies or individuals into compliance with their demands...Right. So I guess this [https://www.eff.org/wp/anatomy-bogus-subpoena-indymedia] never happened. In reference to the link, not only did the federal prosecutor request all the ip addresses and other identifying information of people who visited indymedia.us. The subpoena also included language barring the recipient from speaking about the subpoena. Here's the thing though, the prosecutor did not have a court order for such silence so there was no legal way for them to prevent the recipient from talking about the fact that the subpoena existed. The prosecutor was hoping to intimidate the recipient into silence while they got what they wanted.


My theory is based on the idea that some of the information requested is an over reach and that they want to smooth things over by pointing out that this was agreed upon by the main parties. My theory about Sony's strategy is not contingent in any way on the competence of any of the subpoenaed parties because whether they fall for it or not has nothing to do with the description of the strategy itself. One thing is a result, the other is a plan to achieve a given result. It is certainly within Sony's best interests for those subpoenaed to comply regardless of the validity of the subpoenas.

 

[JDKJ]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

I said if they comply and the subpoenas are later found to be improper. Lawyers can and do fuck things up. The presence and knowledge of a legal team doesn't change that simple fact. It isn't the first time something like that was attempted. There was a recent case about porn downloaders where a lawyer tried to issue subpoenas without authorization. The man was definitely hoping no one would notice, thankfully people did notice. That stunt torpedoed the whole case.

What you said was a whole lotta nonsense about "hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas" as if the Legal Departments at Google, YouTube, et al. are staffed by a bunch of gullible idiots who ain't never received a subpoena before.

Yawn. Really, what does the competence of Google's legal staff have to do with the simple fact that they could be held liable if they complied with subpoenas that were issued in error for any reason? It also does not address the fact that Google are not the only ones being served subpoenas. Why don't you answer that instead of pretending I said that the staff at these companies are stupid etc.?

Your theory that "Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties" only begins to have any credibility whatsoever if it is premised on the assumption that the recipients of those subpoenas are stupid enough to fall for that trick. That's the relevance of the competence and experience of the legal departments at those various corporations to your own theory. The fact that they are sophisticated and experienced in responding to subpoenas blows the likelihood of your theory to smithereens. But tinfoil hat conspiracy theories aren't usually valid. They're . . . well, just tinfoil hat conspiracies theories.

So it is entirely impossible that this is part of the strategy? Because no one has ever issued improper subpoenas in an effort to intimidate companies or individuals into compliance with their demands...Right. So I guess this [https://www.eff.org/wp/anatomy-bogus-subpoena-indymedia] never happened. In reference to the link, not only did the federal prosecutor request all the ip addresses and other identifying information of people who visited indymedia.us. The subpoena also included language barring the recipient from speaking about the subpoena. Here's the thing though, the prosecutor did not have a court order for such silence so there was no legal way for them to prevent the recipient from talking about the fact that the subpoena existed. The prosecutor was hoping to intimidate the recipient into silence while they got what they wanted.


My theory is based on the idea that some of the information requested is an over reach and that they want to smooth things over by pointing out that this was agreed upon by the main parties. My theory about Sony's strategy is not contingent in any way on the competence of any of the subpoenaed parties because whether they fall for it or not has nothing to do with the description of the strategy itself. One thing is a result, the other is a plan to achieve a given result. It is certainly within Sony's best interests for those subpoenaed to comply regardless of the validity of the subpoenas.

No, it's not entirely impossible. Just mostly ridiculous.

 

[shadow skill]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

I said if they comply and the subpoenas are later found to be improper. Lawyers can and do fuck things up. The presence and knowledge of a legal team doesn't change that simple fact. It isn't the first time something like that was attempted. There was a recent case about porn downloaders where a lawyer tried to issue subpoenas without authorization. The man was definitely hoping no one would notice, thankfully people did notice. That stunt torpedoed the whole case.

What you said was a whole lotta nonsense about "hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas" as if the Legal Departments at Google, YouTube, et al. are staffed by a bunch of gullible idiots who ain't never received a subpoena before.

Yawn. Really, what does the competence of Google's legal staff have to do with the simple fact that they could be held liable if they complied with subpoenas that were issued in error for any reason? It also does not address the fact that Google are not the only ones being served subpoenas. Why don't you answer that instead of pretending I said that the staff at these companies are stupid etc.?

Your theory that "Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties" only begins to have any credibility whatsoever if it is premised on the assumption that the recipients of those subpoenas are stupid enough to fall for that trick. That's the relevance of the competence and experience of the legal departments at those various corporations to your own theory. The fact that they are sophisticated and experienced in responding to subpoenas blows the likelihood of your theory to smithereens. But tinfoil hat conspiracy theories aren't usually valid. They're . . . well, just tinfoil hat conspiracies theories.

So it is entirely impossible that this is part of the strategy? Because no one has ever issued improper subpoenas in an effort to intimidate companies or individuals into compliance with their demands...Right. So I guess this [https://www.eff.org/wp/anatomy-bogus-subpoena-indymedia] never happened. In reference to the link, not only did the federal prosecutor request all the ip addresses and other identifying information of people who visited indymedia.us. The subpoena also included language barring the recipient from speaking about the subpoena. Here's the thing though, the prosecutor did not have a court order for such silence so there was no legal way for them to prevent the recipient from talking about the fact that the subpoena existed. The prosecutor was hoping to intimidate the recipient into silence while they got what they wanted.


My theory is based on the idea that some of the information requested is an over reach and that they want to smooth things over by pointing out that this was agreed upon by the main parties. My theory about Sony's strategy is not contingent in any way on the competence of any of the subpoenaed parties because whether they fall for it or not has nothing to do with the description of the strategy itself. One thing is a result, the other is a plan to achieve a given result. It is certainly within Sony's best interests for those subpoenaed to comply regardless of the validity of the subpoenas.

No, it's not entirely impossible. Just mostly ridiculous.

Why because you have this baseless belief that lawyers are immune to subtle manipulation? You've mis-characterized what I have said as conspiracy theory, and as a theory based on the the lack of competence on the part of Google's legal team (While failing to understand that Google notifying the affected individuals would not necessarily make free them from liability if they could be held liable for complying with a subpoena that was found to be invalid.) yet we have numerous examples of entire legal actions being filed not for the purposes of actually addressing any injury but as a means to an end in a money making scheme (See patent and copyright trolls.) the very fact that these exist as business models makes it clear that what is true or fair is not necessarily in the best interest of litigants to pursue.

Hell prosecutors have argued with straight faces before the SCOTUS that they can fabricate evidence pre-trial and not be held liable:http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/pottawattamie-county-v-mcghee/#Oral_Argument

 

[JDKJ]

And it doesn't go to the jurdisdiction issue only. There's also an issue concerning distribution of the circumvention technology (a required element of a successful circumvention claim under the DMCA) to which it squarely relates.

...so how does this relate to a broadly sweeping subpoena? See, subpoena requests are frequently denied in courts around the world because they are not tailored narrowly enough. This was also the case with the first attempt Sony made, where they actually asked about any information possibly related to their case - as an investigative matter, to help them build a case against possible people who may have been involved. This was thrown out. The new variant - apparently the same request, but for a different purpose, was not.

So no, this does not happen every day. What happens every day are subpoenas that are narrowly tailored, and that makes specific requests related to given people and identities. While something that simply draws in several parties, sources, and possible leads -- that's practically unheard of. Even the DOJ guards itself from pushing those too hard, and have had trouble with requests like these even when hunting abominable snowmen in the Afghan mountains. There's a small controversy over that issue as well, if you have been following the news..

Fine. Don't trust me. But keep your shocked and surprised look handy. I fear this isn't the last time you'll have need of it.

Still doesn't change the fact that you don't need identifying information of non parties to prove distribution. Nor do you need that to prove that people were physically located in a given area at the time of access.

The law regarding whether there is a problem with a piece of software does not depend on comments that say "LOL now I pirate." or "Now I build awesome webserver for cheap." All that has to be done is demonstrate value etc. What people say about the item isn't relevant to the application of the rules of the DMCA.

Fine. Then Google and the rest of the websites will move to quash and Justice will prevail.

But here's a lil' legal tidbit that may interest you:

If the case had been in a federal court, then Sony's attorneys wouldn't have even needed a court's approval beforehand in order to serve a subpoena. Federally-barred attorneys are "officers of the court" with automatically granted subpoena powers.

They won't necessarily do anything. Although if the subpoenas were later found to be improper they could be held liable for releasing the information. Sony is trying to game them by saying that Hotz agreed to the subpoenas. Hotz's agreement says nothing about the agreement of non parties.

You have no idea how the meet and confer and subpoena process or the discovery and evidentiary processes work, do you? The many erroneous and fallacious statements you make suggest to me that you don't.

Are you aware that Google, as a matter of its own stated policy, will inform the user that they have received a subpoena requesting disclosure of the user's information and only if the user fails to raise objection will Google, provided it has no objections of its own, produce the information? No, I suspect that you're not aware of that fact.

That has nothing to do with the legality of the subpoena itself. I know full well that if they notify the party involved and the subpoena is legal they are in the clear. However they may have a problem if the subpoena was for say email content and it was a civil as opposed to criminal subpoena and they complied. It has to be the right kind of subpoena and it has to be properly issued. Otherwise anybody could genuinely trick an ISP into divulging correspondence and the ISP would turn around and claim no liability when the customer tried to sue them to hell for rubber stamping things.

Now the ISP may certainly refuse to comply with an improper subpoena, but Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties.

Where your theory fails is in not recognizing that Google has an entire legal department staffed with competent attorneys who regularly receive, review, and respond to subpoenas and who, unlike you, know full well the rules of the subpoena game and how that game is played.

I said if they comply and the subpoenas are later found to be improper. Lawyers can and do fuck things up. The presence and knowledge of a legal team doesn't change that simple fact. It isn't the first time something like that was attempted. There was a recent case about porn downloaders where a lawyer tried to issue subpoenas without authorization. The man was definitely hoping no one would notice, thankfully people did notice. That stunt torpedoed the whole case.

What you said was a whole lotta nonsense about "hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas" as if the Legal Departments at Google, YouTube, et al. are staffed by a bunch of gullible idiots who ain't never received a subpoena before.

Yawn. Really, what does the competence of Google's legal staff have to do with the simple fact that they could be held liable if they complied with subpoenas that were issued in error for any reason? It also does not address the fact that Google are not the only ones being served subpoenas. Why don't you answer that instead of pretending I said that the staff at these companies are stupid etc.?

Your theory that "Sony is playing the psychological game of having Hotz agree to these subpoenas to hopefully dull the senses of relevant parties into not questioning the validity of the subpoenas regardless of any agreement reached by the two main parties" only begins to have any credibility whatsoever if it is premised on the assumption that the recipients of those subpoenas are stupid enough to fall for that trick. That's the relevance of the competence and experience of the legal departments at those various corporations to your own theory. The fact that they are sophisticated and experienced in responding to subpoenas blows the likelihood of your theory to smithereens. But tinfoil hat conspiracy theories aren't usually valid. They're . . . well, just tinfoil hat conspiracies theories.

So it is entirely impossible that this is part of the strategy? Because no one has ever issued improper subpoenas in an effort to intimidate companies or individuals into compliance with their demands...Right. So I guess this [https://www.eff.org/wp/anatomy-bogus-subpoena-indymedia] never happened. In reference to the link, not only did the federal prosecutor request all the ip addresses and other identifying information of people who visited indymedia.us. The subpoena also included language barring the recipient from speaking about the subpoena. Here's the thing though, the prosecutor did not have a court order for such silence so there was no legal way for them to prevent the recipient from talking about the fact that the subpoena existed. The prosecutor was hoping to intimidate the recipient into silence while they got what they wanted.


My theory is based on the idea that some of the information requested is an over reach and that they want to smooth things over by pointing out that this was agreed upon by the main parties. My theory about Sony's strategy is not contingent in any way on the competence of any of the subpoenaed parties because whether they fall for it or not has nothing to do with the description of the strategy itself. One thing is a result, the other is a plan to achieve a given result. It is certainly within Sony's best interests for those subpoenaed to comply regardless of the validity of the subpoenas.

No, it's not entirely impossible. Just mostly ridiculous.

Why because you have this baseless belief that lawyers are immune to subtle manipulation? You've mis-characterized what I have said as conspiracy theory, and as a theory based on the the lack of competence on the part of Google's legal team (While failing to understand that Google notifying the affected individuals would not necessarily make free them from liability if they could be held liable for complying with a subpoena that was found to be invalid.) yet we have numerous examples of entire legal actions being filed not for the purposes of actually addressing any injury but as a means to an end in a money making scheme (See patent and copyright trolls.) the very fact that these exist as business models makes it clear that what is true or fair is not necessarily in the best interest of litigants to pursue.

Hell prosecutors have argued with straight faces before the SCOTUS that they can fabricate evidence pre-trial and not be held liable:http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/pottawattamie-county-v-mcghee/#Oral_Argument

Google receives a subpoena which your information in their custody is the subject thereof. They advise you of that fact and inform you that if you have legal challenges or objections to the production of the requested information you need to raise them or, upon your failing to do so, they will produce the information as requested. You don't do a thing but sit on your ass and watch Google produce the information. It wouldn't matter if the subpoena was written in crayon on a sheet of Bounty paper towel and is as invalid as invalid can be, you have no winning lawsuit against Google. None. None whatsoever. You had your notice and opportunity to quash. You passed. End of story.

 

[mew4ever23]

Hmm. Don't know what sony intends to do with this canadian's information, since I did check out geohot's blog when the custom firmware was bricking certain ps3s.

What's next, going for user information from news sites that reported the breach?