
LeaseWeb: Statement on former client MegaUpload - Hagelin
http://blog.leaseweb.com/2013/06/19/statement-on-former-client-megaupload/
======
purephase
Expecting LeaseWeb to sit on these servers indefinitely without any
communication with Kim is unreasonable. While what happened to MegaUpload is a
travesty, expecting their hosting partners to share collateral cost/damages is
unreasonable given their other obligations.

As stated in the other thread, I think what LeaseWeb has done is fine and Kim
should reconsider his comments. In a similar situation, I doubt he would have
done otherwise.

~~~
AJ007
This is now one parties word against another's. Kim says he tried to contact
them, they said he never did and sent him a notice.

Leaseweb kept the servers a year at their own cost, if the end result is bad
PR from Kim, they should have just cleaned them right away. Alternatively,
they could have coordinated a positive story for both parties.

------
revelation
So the local feds took 60 servers? Out of 690?

I can't tell from the _1HU front plate_ of a _generic server_ what it's
contents are. So maybe those were the only servers they could directly
implicate in transmitting copyrighted stuff? But I'm not sure you can even
make that distinction (load balancers, proxys, internal networking different
from outside view, ..). The charges also included racketeering and other
capital crimes, so I'd imagine they could have easily taken all of these
servers on that charge alone.

Also, the way searches work here is that the people executing them are usually
not involved in the actual investigation. They call it the _executive arm_ for
a reason. So they usually get a broad description of what to take ( _servers_
), and from whom ( _Megaupload_ ) and then take everything they can find.
Police here commonly confiscates _displays_ when looking for hard disks.

Also, why did LeaseWeb not immediately re-assign after first non-payment? What
was the bet here? That MegaUpload would be able to stave off capital charges
on absolutely no capital at all (initially), spanning 5+ countries?

From what it looks like, these servers were tainted, and should have been
taken in as evidence.

(Whats the connection here with [https://www.eff.org/cases/megaupload-data-
seizure](https://www.eff.org/cases/megaupload-data-seizure) ?)

~~~
oijaf888
Maybe they just took the servers that were used for/labeled as email or other
corporate purposes and left the storage farm that had all the content on?
Assuming a segmented network I would think all the corporate servers were on
one network (possibly all in the same racks) that was probably obviously
labeled and the storage servers were identical arrays on another network.

~~~
nickodell
But then why are there 60 of them? You don't need that much for corporate
email.

------
dazbradbury
Kim's response:

 _Leaseweb says: "After a year of nobody showing interest in servers & data we
considered our options." Data preservation emails say otherwise_

[https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/347417997901697024](https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/347417997901697024)

 _Nobody should believe for a second that we haven 't tried everything to
convince #Leaseweb not to delete #Megaupload user data._

[https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/347420452462931969](https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/347420452462931969)

They probably should have had this conversation in public first time round...

------
flog
I consider that an excellent written response to a tricky situation. Props to
them.

------
Nux
Reasonable. Let's see what Kim has to say to that.

------
nickodell
Hypothetically, if Kim Dotcom found the money to run those servers, would he
have been allowed to pay LeaseWeb to keep them unwiped?

~~~
benologist
He did find the money and he chose to make mega.co.nz instead.

Everything else is just a plea for attention.

~~~
llamataboot
Your opinion of course. This is Leaseweb's side of the story. I imagine that
Kim's side sounds very different.

~~~
tzs
The difference is that Dotcom has a long history of lies and fraud. Leaseweb,
on the other hand, doesn't have any negatives I could find in the last few
years aside from Dotcom's complaint.

------
mortdeus
Swap out hard drives, mail them to kim dotcom with a bill. Its a good idea
anyways.

------
fuddle
Kim called it a "data massacre", he's not one for understatement. Kim should
of already had backups, he can't expect a business to hold his leased servers
without any compensation.

------
throwaway10001
Sucks to be Kim but why should another third, seemly innocent party, have to
suffer too?

600 servers that be leased at, say, $100 a month is $60,000 a month or $720K a
year. Kim, FedGov...Jesus or whoever should pay if they want to keep the
servers idle. Leaseweb had more patience than I would have had.

As for evidence: My guess is that the Feds have enough preserved servers to
make their case. You do not need them all unless you want to file 100++
million charges. If they have 10 servers and within them they have enough data
about xxx violations of the law, that's good enough. He will be charged with
them and that's it.

Low blow from Kim.

~~~
avargas
Also note that $100 per month is pretty low-ball figure.

~~~
DanBlake
I think its high ball. The servers were no doubt paid-for by that point.

The only real cost they could have is depreciation on the servers themselves
and power to keep them on. I dont think its fair to call potential income they
could get from re-renting them lost money, as its not like leaseweb stopped
taking customer orders.

Also, I think this is actually going to be good for Kim. While everyone from
the MU side denys it, the overwhelming use for MU was infringing content. By
LW deleting this, I believe it benefits MU more than it hurts them.
Prosecution has to prove guilt, not the other way around. If evidence gets
deleted that goes to serve MU, not the USDOJ.

------
rebelde
This is what they could have done to save the data:

\- replace the hard drives

\- start renting the servers to other people

\- save the old hard drives just in case

How much would it have cost them to save the old hard drives on 600 servers?
Not much.

~~~
rdouble
_How much would it have cost them to save the old hard drives on 600 servers?
Not much._

over $100,000 based on a very conservative and unrealistic estimate only
factoring in the cost of removing and installing 600 hard drives.

~~~
kenrikm
100k is less then the 750k - 1M that lost for hanging onto them for a year
without use. Sorry but something smells fishy here, the first month they
should have swapped the drives and put those servers back up. (saving the
drives intact just incase the feds came asking for them)

~~~
mauritsd
You're forgetting that when they initially decided to keep the servers they
didn't know whether Kim would regain access to his funds or whether he would
want to buy the data back at all. In retrospect they could've made the
decision to do what you're suggesting.

I know conspiracy theories are appealing, but it's much more likely that they
took a calculated risk by holding on to the data/servers for one of their
bigger, well-paying clients (~1.5% of their total server count). Then, when
the gamble didn't look like it was going to pay off, they decided to cut their
losses and reuse the servers.

