Collateral Damage

The US Government yesterday shut down popular file storage site Megaupload (I can’t link to it because the site is down). The Feds have a very well written, 72-page indictment indicating the illegal activity that was going on there and the fact that the stuff pretty well knew that they were making their millions by selling files they didn’t own. That aspect of the case will be covered in court, and, whether or not you agree with the circumstances, it’s not what I want to cover here.

The problem is, of course, that there are tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of users who used Megaupload for perfectly legitimate, legal storage of files. As of yesterday, all their access to those files is gone. Work documents that groups were collaborating on, family photo albums, insurance records, and other valuable documents, now completely unavailable.

The action is similar to the government discovering that a criminal is using the local post-office box store for transferring stolen goods. The feds swoop down; instead of locking that P.O. Box, then instead shut down the entire chain. Now, there’s tends of thousands of people across the country who cannot access their (perfectly legitimate) mail.

Of course, in the real world, it probably wouldn’t happen that way. The feds would target the criminals, and non-criminal users wouldn’t be affected. But let’s take this analogy one step further: the people who own and operate the chain know that their post offices are being used by criminals to transfer stolen goods. Moreover, the government prosecutors have clear and indisputable evidence that this is the case. Would a judge in this situation issue an order to shut down the entire business, seizing not only the illegal good but actually taking people’s perfectly legal property along with it? It’s possible, I suppose, but there would almost certainly be a period where, after the government has gotten the evidence it needs, the shops would be re-opened and people would be permitted to retrieve their mail. Will that happen in this case? I think it unlikely, but we’ll see.

Is this a reason to avoid storing your valuable files “in the cloud?” I think it is; certainly, the cloud offers an inexpensive way to backup your data, but I’m not sure that I would rely upon it as the primary repository of data.