Prenda Mastermind Gets 14 Years In Prison, Told To Pay Back Just $1.5 Million

from the welcome-to-the-big-leagues dept

The process may have taken forever, but Paul "welcome to the big leagues" Hansmeier, who was the apparent mastermind behind the Prenda copyright trolling scam has finally been sentenced to 14 years in prison, and told to repay $1.5 million to 704 victims of his scam. We've been covering the actions of Hansmeier and his partner in crime, John Steele, going back many, many years now. None of us have the time to recount all of the many scams they've pulled, but they took copyright trolling to new lows. They tried using Florida's "pure bill of discovery" rules to try to abuse the system to get names to shakedown based on IP addresses. They sent totally unqualified and unprepared "associates" into courts to try to hide their own involvement in cases, they abused the CFAA by pretending movies they uploaded themselves were "hacked" in an attempt to get around restrictions on copyright trolling, they got someone they threatened to sue to basically take a dive in order to get access to other people to shake down (and then they went after that guy anyway). Oh, and then there was the whole thing about setting up their own fake movie production house, creating their own porn films to upload themselves, and then pretending in court that they were not the owners of the company in questions. And we don't even have much time to get into the time Steele tried to forge the signature of his housekeeper to pretend he was the actual officer of one of those fake shell companies.

Over and over and over again, Hansmeier and Steele played every possible game with a single focus in mind: getting names of people to send threatening shakedown letters to. And, apparently, they took in about $6 million over the years -- though a bunch of civil cases have forced them to cough up plenty of that before the criminal charges came down.

And there is no indication that Hansmeier had any regrets about all of this. Even after his arrest, he (and his wife) engaged in an analogous scheme of ADA trolling, looking for small businesses who might technically violate the ADA, and demanding cash from them to avoid a lawsuit. Hansmeier is facing an investigation over that as well.

Oh, and then there was the whole bankruptcy fraud thing. Seriously, the list goes on and on and on and everytime you think you remember it all, you're reminded of some other really sketchy thing Hansmeier and Steele did.

So it should probably come as little surprise that the judge in the case was not impressed, and even said he considered giving him even more time in jail:

"It is almost incalculable how much your abuse of trust has harmed the administration of justice," [Judge Joan] Ericksen said during the sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

[....] Ericksen said she considered going beyond sentencing guidelines but decided instead to impose the maximum of that range, followed by two years of supervised release. She ordered Hansmeier to pay restitution, calling it a conservative toll for his crimes. While the amount of money is significant, she said, "that's not even a major part of the harm" he'd done with his scheme.

"The major harm here is what happens when a lawyer acts as a wrecking ball," Ericksen said.

She did actually sentence him to longer than the DOJ requested, but only said he has to pay back $1.5 million, as that's the amount they apparently received after they started posting torrent files themselves in order to track down people to shake down.

John Steele's sentencing is still to come, though, unlike Hansmeier, Steele actually started cooperating much earlier, meaning it's likely that he'll get a somewhat shorter sentence.

As I said years ago, Steele and Hansmeier remind me of some people I've met over the years who basically seem to think that they can talk their way out of anything, and thus lie and scam with impunity, and when caught, just keep thinking they can talk their way out of that as well. In this case, it finally caught up to them.

Filed Under: cfaa, copyright, copyright trolling, fraud, jail, paul hansmeier
Companies: prenda, prenda law

Federal Court Says Taking People's Drivers Licenses Away For Failure To Pay Court Fees Is Unconstitutional

from the towards-a-slightly-less-vicious-cycle dept

Good news out of Tennessee, via Christian Farias: a federal court has struck down the state's modern debtor's prison system.

In Tennessee, if you fail to pay court fines and other fees associated with an arrest or imprisonment for more than a year, your driver's license is revoked. While it may not be as punitive as rounding up debtors and locking them up again (which obviously severely restricts their ability to pay off their debt), it basically serves the same purpose. Someone without a valid driver's license will find their ability to earn income restricted. Driving to and from work with a revoked license just raises the risk of being fined or arrested, placing residents even further away from settling their debts with the government.

The lawsuit was brought by two men who've been unable to make regular payments and have been placed even further behind by having their licenses taken away. Their struggles are briefly described in the court decision [PDF]:

In short, Thomas and Hixson both live in severe poverty and both owe court debt related to past criminal convictions. Thomas is totally and permanently disabled. Hixson has spent time in recent years living in a homeless shelter after a period of incarceration. Each man struggles to afford the basic necessities of life and is unable to pay the court debt assessed against him. Because they failed to pay their court debt for over a year, Thomas and Hixson have both had their driver’s licenses revoked by TDSHS [Tennessee Dept. of Safety and Homeland Security].

The state believes this is an effective deterrent and one of the only ways to guarantee repayment of fines. In fact, a spokesperson for TDSHS has already stated that the ruling is "disappointing" and the agency is reviewing its "legal options." This suggests TDSHS thinks license revocation works, rather than just disproportionately punishes the poorest residents of the state. The district court, however, disagrees with this assessment.

A scheme that revoked the driver’s licenses of non-indigent court debtors after one year of nonpayment would pass rational basis review, because the threat of revocation would plausibly serve as a method for coercing those people into paying their debts. (First Memorandum at 36–37.) Under the Griffin line of cases, however, the court must specifically consider whether the scheme’s lack of an indigence exception is itself rational. Revocation would not be an effective mechanism for coercing payment from a truly indigent debtor, because no person can be threatened or coerced into paying money that he does not have and cannot get. (Id. at 37.) The numbers bear that ineffectiveness out. From July 1, 2012, to June 1, 2016, TDSHS revoked 146,211 driver’s licenses for failure to pay fines, costs and/or litigation taxes; only 10,750 of those people—about 7%—had their licenses reinstated. (Docket No. 64 ¶¶ 107–08.) If Tennessee’s revocation law were capable of coercing people into paying their debts in order to get their licenses back, it would be doing so. The overwhelming majority of the time, it is not.

This is part of the court's analysis of the law and its legality. As precedent holds, a law that affirmatively punishes poor people for being poor is unconstitutional, as it violates both Due Process and Equal Protection principles. Tennessee's law fits the criteria.

Under a long and well-established line of Supreme Court precedents, a statute that penalizes or withholds relief from a defendant in a criminal case, based solely on his nonpayment of a particular sum of money and without providing for an exception if he is willing but unable to pay, is the constitutional equivalent of a statute that specifically imposes a harsher sanction on indigent defendants than on non-indigent defendants.

The court's lengthy examination of the law is worth reading -- especially by federal judges in other states with laws like these. But this is the upshot: the law makes bad situations worse, driving poor people further into poverty. In addition, the state's records show it is completely ineffective on its own terms -- either as a deterrent against non-payment or an efficient way to collect on debts owed.

Ultimately, the court need not determine if the driver’s license revocation law would fail rational basis review based on its sheer ineffectiveness alone, because, as applied to indigent drivers, the law is not merely ineffective; it is powerfully counterproductive. If a person has no resources to pay a debt, he cannot be threatened or cajoled into paying it; he may, however, become able to pay it in the future. But taking his driver’s license away sabotages that prospect.

[...]

In short, losing one’s driver’s license simultaneously makes the burdens of life more expensive and renders the prospect of amassing the resources needed to overcome those burdens more remote.

The court then goes on to note the cycle created by this revocation -- which can lead to additional arrests and/or fines -- just digs a deeper hole for the state. It creates additional debts that have almost zero chance of being repaid. It's nothing more than doubling down on what already isn't working.

Fortunately, there are some on the law enforcement side welcoming this ruling.

Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich praised the decision.

“This ruling will give relief to those drivers whose licenses are revoked only because they lack the financial resources to pay their fines and court costs," Weirich said in a statement. "Our hope is that this will be a positive step toward rehabilitation since offenders getting their driving privileges restored will make employment more feasible. Also, it will reduce our daily caseload and allow us to focus even more on violent crimes and property crimes.”   

The attorneys for the pair of residents -- Claudia Wilner and Josh Spickler -- are hoping this ruling results in another favorable ruling in the near future. The pair is also suing on behalf of the 250,000 state residents who've had their licenses revoked for not paying traffic tickets. As it stands now, the state has sixty days to come up with a plan for reinstating all revoked licenses affected by this ruling and submit it to the court for approval. Reinstatement may be stayed during the inevitable appeal, but for now, the state cannot continue to revoke licenses when someone has shown an inability to pay.

It's a big decision, even if its jurisdictional reach is limited to the state of Tennessee. If this is upheld on appeal, it will cover the four states that make up the Sixth District. Although this has been slightly altered in recent years, Ohio still engages in this practice. In Michigan, a state appeals court judge blocked a similar law late last year. (That decision is currently being appealed.) Kentucky is the only state in the district without a law like this on the books, putting it a step ahead of its district competition.

Filed Under: court fees, driver's license, imprisonment, jail, penal system, poverty, tennessee

Top UK Cop Says Hackers Should Be Punished Not With Prison, But With Jammed WiFi Connections

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

Here's a story that starts out well. One of the UK's top police officers, Chief Superintendent Gavin Thomas, has said that putting people in prison for offenses like hacking into computers makes no sense. He points out that it costs around $50,000 a year to keep someone in a traditional prison, and that education programs are likely to be a far more cost-effective solution, especially in terms of reducing recidivism. This is absolutely right, and it's great to hear a senior officer admit it. Unfortunately, things go downhill from here. He told the Telegraph:

If you have got a 16-year-old who has hacked into your account and stolen your identity, this is a 21st century crime, so we ought to have a 21st century methodology to address it.

His solution is as follows:

He said convicted criminals could be fitted with electronic jammers around their wrists or ankles which blocked wifi signals and prevented them from going online.

Leaving aside the human rights implications, which to his credit Thomas acknowledges, there is another big problem with the proposal, as Techdirt readers have doubtless already spotted. The people wearing these WiFi jammers would be those who have been found guilty of some computer-related crime. By definition, then, they are likely to be tech-savvy. So they probably have other computers that can use Ethernet connections to access the Internet. In addition, they are unlikely to have any problems using Bluetooth or a USB cable to reverse-tether their mobiles to a system with wired access. The more adventurous might even try to rig up some kind of Faraday shielding to jam the jammer. In other words, this isn't going to work, but would probably cause havoc with everyone else's WiFi connections.

Back in 2015, Thomas was quoted by Computer Business Review on the topic of encryption, and the problems it posed for the police, when he said:

It is utterly essential for detectives and criminal investigators to use data held on smartphones and other devices when they are investigating serious crimes.

Given his belief that jamming bracelets would stop convicted computer criminals from using the Internet, the worry has to be that he shares the mistaken view that tech companies can create a safe system of crypto backdoors or "golden keys" that only the authorities can use. Let's hope he takes some expert advice before offering an opinion on that one.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: access, gavin thomas, hackers, jail, law enforcement, punishment, uk, wifi

Tanzanian Farmers Face 12 Years In Prison For Selling Seeds As They've Done For Generations

from the why-not-adopt-big-ag's-patented-approach-instead? dept

Seeds might not seem to have much to do with digital technology, but the DNA that lies at their heart is in fact digital information, and thus many of the issues that concern Techdirt also apply here. One of the key battlegrounds for seeds and their ownership is Africa, as we discussed back in 2013. The Belgian site Mondiaal Nieuws has an update on what's happening in one of the poorest African countries, Tanzania. Things aren't looking good there following a change in the relevant law:

"If you buy seeds from Syngenta or Monsanto under the new legislation, they will retain the intellectual property rights. If you save seeds from your first harvest, you can use them only on your own piece of land for non-commercial purposes. You're not allowed to share them with your neighbors or with your sister-in-law in a different village, and you cannot sell them for sure. But that's the entire foundation of the seed system in Africa", says Michael Farrelly [from an organic farming movement in Tanzania].

Under the new law, Tanzanian farmers risk a prison sentence of at least 12 years or a fine of over €205,300 [about $213,000], or both, if they sell seeds that are not certified.

"That's an amount that a Tanzanian farmer cannot even start to imagine. The average wage is still less than 2 US dollars a day", says Janet Maro, head of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT).

The article indicates that "certified" in this context means patented. That's obviously a problem for small-scale farmers, since they would be unable to afford to go through the patenting process, even if that were even a realistic option. For multinationals like Syngenta or Monsanto, by contrast, patenting is as natural as breathing, and so the new system will strengthen their hand considerably.

"As a result, the farmers' seed system will collapse, because they can't sell their own seeds", according to Janet Maro. "Multinationals will provide our country with seeds and all the farmers will have to buy them from them. That means that we will lose biodiversity, because it is impossible for them to investigate and patent all the seeds we need. We're going to end up with fewer types of seeds."

Here's why this is all happening:

Tanzania applied the legislation concerning intellectual property rights on seeds as a condition for receiving development assistance through the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN). The NAFSN was launched in 2012 by the G8 with the goal to help 50 million people out of poverty and hunger in the ten African partner countries through a public-private partnership. The initiative receives the support of the EU, the US, the UK, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

What's particularly regrettable here is not just the loss of biodiversity, and the fact that African farmers will be beholden to Western corporations, but that the NAFSN program will achieve the opposite of its stated aims, and end up taking away what little independence Tanzanian farmers enjoyed under the traditional seed system. No wonder, then, that last year Members of the European Parliament called for the NAFSN to "radically alter its mission". Judging by what's happening in Tanzania, there's no sign of that happening.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: farming, jail, patents, seeds, tanzania
Companies: monsanto, syngenta

So Much For The Fifth Amendment: Man Jailed For Seven Months For Not Turning Over Password

from the enjoying-your-rights,-citizen? dept

The FBI recently spent more than $1 million for assistance in decrypting a device's contents. It may have overpaid. Alternatives exist, whether it's a $5 wrench or indefinite imprisonment for not helping the government with its prosecution efforts.

A Philadelphia man suspected of possessing child pornography has been in jail for seven months and counting after being found in contempt of a court order demanding that he decrypt two password-protected hard drives.

The suspect, a former Philadelphia Police Department sergeant, has not been charged with any child porn crimes. Instead, he remains indefinitely imprisoned in Philadelphia's Federal Detention Center for refusing to unlock two drives encrypted with Apple's FileVault software in a case that once again highlights the extent to which the authorities are going to crack encrypted devices. The man is to remain jailed "until such time that he fully complies" with the decryption order.

The Fifth Amendment should prevent the government from punishing a person for not testifying against themselves, which is what's being argued by the defendant's representation in its appeal to the Third Circuit. (Although it's actually indirect representation. The government's case is actually against Doe's devices ["United States of America v. Apple MacPro Computer, et al"] and his lawyer is hoping for a stay of the contempt order during the appeal process.)

Mr. Doe… has a strong likelihood of success on the second issue: whether compelling the target of a criminal investigation to recall and divulge an encryption passcode transgresses the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Supreme Court precedent already instructs that a suspect may not be compelled to disclose the sequence of numbers that will open a combination lock — clearly auguring the same rule for any compelled disclosure of the sequence of characters constituting an encryption passcode.

Doe's rep also argues that the All Writs order obtained by the government has no jurisdiction over Doe or his devices.

Mr. Doe’s first claim is that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The claim stems from the government’s apparently unprecedented use of an unusual procedural vehicle to attempt to compel a suspect to give evidence in advance of potential criminal charges. Specifically, the government took resort not to a grand jury, but to a magistrate judge pursuant to the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651. (Ex. F at 1).

It is black letter law that the All Writs Act never supplies “any federal subject-matter jurisdiction in its own right[.]” Sygenta Crop Protection, Inc. v. Henson, 537 U.S. 28, 31 (2002) (citation omitted). It is equally well-settled that the Act has no application where other provisions of law specifically address the subject matter concerned. Pennsylvania Bureau of Correction v. United States Marshals Service, 474 U.S. 34, 40-42 (1985). The compelled production of evidence in advance of criminal charges is specifically addressed by Rules 6 and 17 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which authorize the issuance and enforcement of grand jury subpoenas; and by 28 U.S.C. § 1826(a), which specifies the authorized penalties for a witness who refuses without good cause to give the evidence demanded by the grand jury.

As it stands now, Doe is still being held in contempt of court for refusing to decrypt his devices for investigators. The district court that held him in contempt has refused direct appeal of that order, resulting in the labyrinthine legal strategy of using the government's case against Doe's devices as a vehicle for challenging the lower court's contempt order.

Doe has not been charged, yet he's in prison. Backing up the government's assertions for holding him in contempt are two dubious pieces of hearsay. One is from his estranged sister, who claims to have seen child porn on Doe's computer, but can't actually say whether it was located on the devices the government is seeking to have decrypted. The other is from some sort of law enforcement encryption whisperer, who can apparently see things in the scrambled bits.

The government’s second witness was Detective Christopher Tankelewicz, a forensic examiner with the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office. He testified only that it was his “best guess” child pornography would be found on the hard drives. (Ex. J at 346). According to Tankelewicz’s understanding of the Freenet online network (in which he admits having no training), there were signs on an Apple Mac Pro computer seized with the hard drives of a user accessing or trying to access message boards with names suggestive of child pornography. (Ex. J at 306, 311-312, 339-340). In rather ambiguous testimony, Tankelewicz did not appear to say this meant any image traded over these boards was on the hard drives. (See Ex. J at 303-317, 336-340, 345-350). Instead, he identified a single image he believed there to be a “possibility” was on the drives. (Ex. J at 308-309). As he described it, the image was of “a four or five-year-old girl with her dress lifted up, but the image itself was small so you really couldn’t see what was going on with the image.” (Ex. J at 308).

No one wants to see a sex offender walk away from charges, but at this point, Doe hasn't even been officially charged with anything more than contempt. The problem with that charge is it has no end date. He can either stay in jail or comply with the order, even when the order conjures jurisdiction out of nowhere and violates his Fifth Amendment rights. If the government doesn't have enough evidence to pursue a case against Doe, it should cut him loose until it does.

Filed Under: all writs act, child porn, contempt, encryption, fifth amendment, in rem, jail, password, philadelphia

Matthew Keys Gets 2 Years In Jail For 40 Minute Web Defacement He Didn't Even Commit

from the punishment-fitting-the-crime? dept

The latest in the Matthe Keys case is that Keys has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for his involvement in a minor incomprehensible web defacement of an LA Times story that lasted for all of about 40 minutes. The prosecution was asking for 5 years, while Keys' lawyers asked for nothing more than probation. As we noted, the whole thing seems fairly crazy. It is entirely possible that Keys acted like an immature jackass regarding his former employer, but the actual case revolved around a single action: the claimed sharing of login credentials for the content management system of the Tribune Company, which another person (who is apparently known to law enforcement, but has never been charged with anything) used to do a minor defacement of a single story to have the headline read: Pressure builds in House to elect CHIPPY 1337.

This minor defacement was up for about 40 minutes before being taken down. When the government tried to add up the damages, the Tribune Company at first admitted that there were basically none. After being pushed, they "found" more damages and somehow it turned into nearly a million dollars, by making emails that "cost" $225 and talking about something totally unrelated to this hack -- some alleged harassment Key did by emailing people in a database from his former employer. If he actually did this (he denies it), it was a really shitty thing to do, but it also was not what he was on trial for.

Either way, the government needed the number to be at least $5000 so it could use the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) against Keys. From the sound of things at the sentencing hearing (mainly via reporter Sarah Jeong's excellent tweets), the judge initially did sound fairly skeptical about the government's arguments, but eventually went with 24 months in prison. Somewhat incredibly, someone from the LA Times even presented that this minor bit of digital vandalism was "an attack" on the entire journalism field, and since there's already difficulty in figuring out what news is real, this was a true threat to credibility for journalism as a whole. Really, now?

The prosecution also apparently whined to the judge that Keys has been talking publicly about his case, which, last I checked, is protected free speech:

Prosecutor does not like that Keys has been tweeting and giving interviews as follows pic.twitter.com/jdG5eUHkC2

— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) April 13, 2016

While the judge at least indicated she didn't care about all that -- she still sentenced him to two years in prison.

And, really, that's the crux of the issue here. For everything that Matthew Keys was accused of doing -- and some of it was undoubtedly obnoxious -- the single thing he was charged with was violating the CFAA by distributing a username and password. And he's now been sentenced to two whole years in jail for that. How in the world does the punishment here fit the crime? As David Graham noted, this is basically the same sentence (actually slightly longer) that the "affluenza teen" received on the same day for killing four people while driving drunk. Or, as Adam Steinbaugh notes, Keys will end up spending about 18 days in prison for every minute that the LA Times defacement (which, again, he didn't actually do) remained online.

Matthew Keys will spend ~18 days in prison for every sixty seconds that the LA Times said Chippy 1337 might pass in the House.

— Adam Steinbaugh (@adamsteinbaugh) April 13, 2016

And while Keys still maintains his overall innocence, even if he did exactly what he's accused of doing this sentence is absolutely insane and highlights just how ridiculous the CFAA is as a law -- and why it's so beloved by prosecutors who can use it to go after lots of people for doing really small things.

Filed Under: cfaa, cfaa reform, defacement, doj, jail, matthew keys, vandalism
Companies: tribune company

French Parliament Votes For Law That Would Put Tech Execs In Jail If They Don't Decrypt Data

from the goodbye-computer-security-in-france dept

Okay, this is just getting silly now. A bunch of reactionary French politicians have voted to put tech execs in jail if they refuse to decrypt data for criminal investigations:

The controversial amendment, drafted by the rightwing opposition, stipulates that a private company which refuses to hand over encrypted data to an investigating authority would face up to five years in jail and a €350,000 (£270,000) fine.

Telecoms operating companies would be liable to lesser penalties but would still face up to two years in jail.

Of course, this comes at the same time that basically the entire tech industry is rallying in support of Apple's stance of refusing to hack into its own systems to remove security features and make it easier to decrypt data. And it's coming right as the world was ridiculing Brazil for arresting (and then releasing) a Facebook exec for refusing to hand over data from subsidiary Whatsapp.

This kind of move is so stupid on so many levels that it defies any kind of logic. It's bad for security, because weak encryption puts us all at much greater risk than the threat of terrorists or criminals using encryption (in part, because this kind of thing won't stop them from using secure encryption, and in part because those threats are very low probability risks). It's also bad for the economy, because you've just given a ton of important tech companies every reason in the world to no longer operate in France due to such a ridiculous law that may put execs in jail. It's bad for the public in that it will mean less secure services and devices that put them at risk, while also potentially cutting off more innovative and useful products and services.

This is the kind of kneejerk reaction from people who are too ignorant and too scared to understand the actual technology and the actual issues at stake. Why do citizens in these countries continue to allow ignorant scared people to make such blatantly bad rules?

Filed Under: backdoors, criminal, encryption, execs, france, jail

Canadian Smoke Shop Owner Demonstrates How To Turn Trademark Infringement Into Jail Time

from the LIFEHACK dept

Lots of brands seem to feel trademark infringement should be greeted with the full brunt force of the law -- even though it's rarely anything more than a civil offense. Counterfeited goods are their own issue, with Good Guy ICE on hand to run interference for major studios, the NFL and anyone else with a significant amount of lobbying power. Counterfeiters can end up in jail, but entities that do nothing more than use a trademarked name/logo without permission or in a "confusing" fashion? Not so much.

There are exceptions, of course. And caveats. But that's exactly what happened in Canada. Jail time for trademark infringement. Richard Stobbe of IPblog.ca has more details.

Imprisonment in intellectual property infringement cases is rare - although not unheard of. The message from a recent Canadian Federal Court decision is… don’t mess with the Court. They expect compliance with their orders and a contempt order can lead to a “warrant of committal”, resulting in imprisonment.

So, it wasn't exactly jail time for trademark infringement. And it happened in Canada. But the circumstances leading to the perpetrator's jailing contained plenty of infringement. Losing the lawsuit apparently had no deterrent effect on the defendant's activities, which went on completely uninterrupted after the judgment was handed down.

In 2013, a Federal Court ruled that Hightimes Smokeshop and its officer and director, Ameen Muhammad had infringed the “HIGH TIMES” trademark owned by Trans-High Corporation (See: Trans-High Corporation v Hightimes Smokeshop and Gifts Inc., 2013 FC 1190 (CanLII)). In spite of this judgment, the judgement was ignored, and trademark infringement continued on the shop signage, sales receipts and printed materials of Hightimes Smokeshop.

Two years later, Muhammad pleaded guilty to several counts of contempt for violating the order. He was also fined $62,500. The contempt order issued by the court along with this new judgment was also ignored. This forced the court to assume its final (incensed and irate) form. Muhammad is headed to jail.

A warrant of committal shall be issued for Ameen Muhammad a.k.a. Ameen Mohammad, who shall be arrested and imprisoned for a period of not less than 14 days and remain imprisoned until the full amounts of all fines, costs, and other amounts owing under the Contempt Order and the judgment of Justice Manson dated November 26, 2013 have been paid.

So, someone can go to jail for trademark infringement, but only if they're willing to get sued, lose the lawsuit, pretend the lawsuit never happened and ignore successively more severe orders from the court. It may also help to be Canadian, but one can imagine the same result could be achieved in the US with the right amount of sticktoitiveness.

Filed Under: ameen muhammad, canada, high times, jail, trademark

Different Brazilian Judge Orders Facebook Exec Released After Arrest

from the what's-going-on-down-there dept

A bit of a follow up to yesterday's story about Brazilian law enforcement arresting Facebook vice president for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, because Whatsapp (a Facebook subsidiary) refused to help in a drug trafficking case. This was a ridiculous move by almost any measure: (1) While Whatsapp is a Facebook subsidiary, it's operated independently, so arresting a Facebook exec is like arresting an investor for what one of its companies does; (2) Whatsapp uses strong end-to-end encryption from Open Whisper Systems, the folks who make the gold standard encrypted communication system Signal Private Messenger, meaning that it's impossible for Whatsapp or Facebook to decrypt messages; and (3) jailing unrelated executives over issues like that is just insane.

Having heard from some folks in Brazil, it appears that part of the issue here was that the court wasn't necessarily seeking decrypted contents, but metadata about who someone was contacting. However, Whatsapp -- which doesn't appear to have operations in Brazil -- more or less ignored the demand. There's something of an open question as to whether or not Whatsapp has the metadata in question or whether or not Brazilian wiretapping laws apply to it, but that's another issue for another day. Either way, the original judge decided that because Whatsapp is owned by Facebook, that the two were basically the same, and thus the court could just throw a random Facebook exec in jail.

Thankfully, at least some cooler heads prevailed, and another judge has ordered that Dzodan be released, saying that the original order was "unlawful coercion."

The judge, Ruy Pinheiro, considered the detention of Diego Dzodan in Sao Paulo on Tuesday "unlawful coercion," the court in Sergipe state said in a statement.

"It seems to me that the extreme measure of imprisonment was hurried," Pinheiro said.

"Hurried" feels like a bit of an understatement. Still, it's good to see that the judicial system in Brazil quickly realized its mistake, even if it's worrisome that it made that mistake in the first place.

Filed Under: brazil, diego dzodan, encryption, jail
Companies: facebook, whatsapp

Another Revenge Porn Extortion Site Operator Going To Jail

from the random-sentencing dept

Sentencing revenge porn extortionists seems to be all over the place. Craig Brittain, who basically originated the extortionate process of not just running a revenge porn website, but combining it with a (pretending to be) separate "pay us and we'll get your naked photos taken down" service, had his wrists duly slapped by the FTC earlier this year. Shortly after that, Kevin Bollaert, who more or less copied Brittain's plan, got sentenced to 18 years in jail (which he's currently in the process of appealing). Hunter Moore, who is often credited with being the first one to set up a big revenge porn site (without the corresponding extortionate takedowns, but apparently with hiring people to hack into computers to get copies of naked photos to post), took a plea deal with somewhere between two and seven years in jail.

And, now, Casey Meyering, who also copied Brittain's plan -- almost exactly -- and who also took a plea deal a few weeks ago, has been sentenced to three years in jail (which he can't appeal, due to the plea deal). Adam Steinbaugh, who spends his spare time hunting down revenge porn operators, provides a bit of background:

In June of 2013, I documented how Meyering had ripped off an extortion scheme pioneered by another revenge porn site operator, Craig Brittain.  Meyering created Takedownhammer.info, copying Brittain’s Takedownhammer.com (word for word), and solicited payments to this “independent” service using a Google Wallet account clearly linked to Meyering’s drum-lessons business.

When Meyering was arrested in February of 2014, he was found in a Tulsa hotel room, drunk.  He subsequently told the court he was homeless, bankrupt, and had nobody to ask for financial assistance to hire an attorney.

It seems like the sentencing is all over the place with these guys. However, at the very least, it seems to have scared most revenge porn sites away from the US.

Filed Under: casey meyering, craig brittain, jail, kevin bollaert, punishment, revenge porn