KF Related - General Knowledge Josh's Legal Fees (Is he Grifting?) and IOLTA (What is it?)

[Kenneth Erwin Engelhardt]

Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice.

On February 2nd, Null's attorney launched on IOLTA account to ostensibly pay for litigation costs. According to their website: https://lolcowfund.hardin.law/ But what exactly is an IOLTA?

IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts) is a way of raising money for charitable purposes. It is intended to fund civil legal services for people who are indigent (impoverished). IOLTAs were set up in the United States after federal banking laws were changed to allow some checking accounts to earn interest. IOLTAs operate in all 50 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

An IOLTA is a trust account set up by an attorney to handle money that belongs to the client such as settlement checks, advance payments for services not yet performed or funds needed to pay various court fees. If the amount of funds is substantial the attorney can deposit the funds into a trust account so they can earn interest for the client.

Since the money in the trust account belongs to the client, the interest earned from that account also belongs to the client. Normally the funds are only in there for a short time or they are relatively small and don't earn interest. Lawyers are not permitted to derive a financial benefit from the interest on an IOLTA.

Source: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/interest_lawyers_trust_accounts/overview/
More information on IOLTAs: https://www.cosmolex.com/resource-c...t-happens-to-the-interest-in-a-trust-account/

Now according to Quora, a lawyer will usually spend between 10 to 50 hours on a case depending on its complexity.

Currently: Null's fund has $157,886 in it. Null has stated that he is looking for an out of court settlement rather than an expensive court case.

In a previous thread, I think it stated that Matthew Hardin's legal fees ranged from $285 to $400 per hour which for the Washington DC area is reasonable.

Let's assume that Hardin charges $340/hour which is approximately halfway between these two figures.

At 10 hours X $340/hour Hardin's legal fees amount to $3,400
At 50 hours X $340/hour Hardin's legal fees amount to $17,000

Based on Hardin's previous thread, I am going to assume that he isn't the type of person who is a "ball of fire" litigator but one who prefers to settle things quietly behind the scenes. So It would be a reasonable conclusion that Hardin's time would probably be in the lower end of the 10 to 50 hour range.

Contingency Fees vs. Hourly rate: Lawyers who handle civil litigation cases typically work on a contingency basis. In other words, if they win the case they get a percentage of the damages awarded. Typically the average is around 33% (1/3). So if Null and Epik for example agree to a $100,000 out of court settlement, Hardin would collect 1/3 of that about $33,333, while Null would get the rest $66,666 minus whatever court costs would involved.

And here is the catch with a contingency arrangement. Generally on a contingency basis lawyers only get paid if they win. If an lawyer doesn't think they have a very strong case, that attorney might enter negotiations with the other party to come up with an agreed upon settlement and avoid the expense of a trial.

In other words in the event of an out of court settlement, the IOLTA funding may not even be necessary (certainly not to the tune of $157,886).

 

[KampungBoy]

It should be noted also I think that Null is doing not even the bare minimum of transparency and is dodging questions about his legal plans. At least some people still seem to be under the impression that this is being brought to trial whereas Null seems to be expressing that he would prefer to settle begging the question of why exactly he needed 150k or even his initial goal of 75k which he stated would be the minimum he would need for such a case.

In the sense that he seems to be leading people on by hyperbolizing the financial requirements and then immediately taking the cheapest way out which is not what he outlined in the initial plea for donos.

Here is Null completely ignoring a user asking for a timeline for his legal action. Null has also not put up a tally for the donos he received which he said he would do meaning that if you want an update on the fundraiser you will need to get the amount from the main site and then search through the litigation thread to find the latest update and then add that with the total from the main site.

It's almost like he is trying to make this info hard to find. For all these reasons I do suspect this to be a grift.

 

[Crimson Fucker]

Tl;Dr you're not an attorney. disregard_everything_you_said,_you_suck_cocks.meme

 

[polonium]

t's almost like he is trying to make this info hard to find. For all these reasons I do suspect this to be a grift.

I posted it elsewhere, will update this here when I get back to a computer later but you're right, it's absolutely transparent that it's a grift: when he's touting for donations he talks about the lawsuit and what he says he's planning to do. However, the donation collection pages say nothing about any of that and actually they say the opposite: no refunds, this is a personal donation to Joshua Moon to be spent on whatever he likes with no expectation of a particular result, etc etc.

 

[atmos driver]

Imagine giving your hard earned money to a Blockland troll who runs a tiny webforum which discusses things you can discuss on dozens of other sites.

 

[The Gays From LA]

If the amount of funds is substantial the attorney can deposit the funds into a trust account so they can earn interest for the client.

Define "substantial". Is $100k substantial? Is $1 million? $1000?

Now according to Quora, a lawyer will usually spend between 10 to 50 hours on a case depending on its complexity.

My dude, this is not gonna be a single 50 hour standard case. Whether he sues Epik or Caraballo or LFJ or all three, there are inevitably going to be anti-SLAPP motions from all or some of them, and those anti-SLAPP motions can take up to a year to fight in court. Hardin won't be able to do anything if there is anti-SLAPP in place, All Hardin will be doing is fighting the anti-SLAPP. Especially in California, where LFJ/Honeycomb are, anti-SLAPP is very strong. Marilyn Manson filed a defamation lolsuit against his ex-girlfriend who claimed she was #MeTooed by him, and he spent a year in court fighting anti-SLAPP in California and he still lost. Marilyn Manson is a multi-millionaire rockstar who had a team of the best Hollywood lawyers money can buy, and he still couldn't get the anti-SLAPP motions dismissed.

At 10 hours X $340/hour Hardin's legal fees amount to $3,400
At 50 hours X $340/hour Hardin's legal fees amount to $17,000

Again, this is not going to be a single 50 hour case. If the defendants file anti-SLAPP motions - and it's almost inevitable here, because Caraballo & LFJ are de facto TRAs, so they will claim that whatever they said was part of their online activism in the context of a public campaign - he will spend a whole year fighting those.

Another mistake you are making in your calculation is to assume that Null is going to sue these people together. My impression from the crowdfunder is that he plans to sue them separately, in different States. So you're looking at 3 different lolsuits, not just one. Then there's the appeal in Australia, which he claims is another half a million dollars, and then there's the Greer appeal, which Hardin is already doing. Those are 5 different lolsuits, all in all. I don't know what involvement, if any, Hardin is going to have in the Australian appeal. I still haven't heard the name of that anonymous Australian firm that wants half a million dollars to do Vincent's appeal. Null suggested that there was unnamed lawyer in California who wants to do his case against LFJ/Honeycomb there, so perhaps Hardin - who I don't recall being licensed to practice in California?- won't be doing the LFJ/Honeycomb lolsuit in CA.

In other words in the event of an out of court settlement, the IOLTA funding may not even be necessary (certainly not to the tune of $157,886).

That's not why they set up the IOLTA though. Null explicitly said that Hardin set it up to prevent discovery of Null's donors. Null claims that Epik threatened to use discovery to expose anyone donating money to his crowdfunder. (I still haven't seen an actual source for this claim, but this is what Null claims Epik said). So the IOLTA was not put in place to collect interest on $100k, it was mainly to anonymize the donors by protecting them from discovery.

Which is funny because it might eventually be Null himself who won't be able to do any discovery if the defendants invoke anti-SLAPP. That's often how anti-SLAPP is strategically used in cases where there's a speech component: to kill a lolsuit by preventing discovery of incriminating documents. Even if you can show that the defendants have the incriminating documents that prove their culpability, that still won't kill an anti-SLAPP.

Null really needs to read these articles and seriously reconsider suing LFJ in California:

Hanson Bridgett Secures Victory in Anti-SLAPP Motion Against Marilyn Manson

May 10, 2023 (San Francisco, CA) – After a year-long battle against Brian Warner (f/k/a Marilyn Manson), Hanson Bridgett partner Maggie Ziemianek and associate Tom Rivera secured victory on the anti-SLAPP motion filed on behalf of their client Ashley Gore.

www.hansonbridgett.com

Judge tosses out bulk of Marilyn Manson's defamation suit against Evan Rachel Wood

A California judge has tossed out most of Marilyn Manson's defamation lawsuit against actress Evan Rachel Wood following her claims of abuse.

consequence.net

Anti-SLAPP Laws Cited in Dismissal of Marilyn Manson Defamation Suit: What is a SLAPP lawsuit?

A very public legal battle between musician Marilyn Manson and actress Evan Rachel Wood (and additional defendant, Illma Gore) has put a spotlight on SLAPP laws. A California judge recently tossed out the bulk of a defamation lawsuit...

www.turnpikelaw.com

 

[polonium]

So the IOLTA was not put in place to collect interest on $100k, it was mainly to anonymize the donors by protecting them from discovery.

Does it do that though?

Spoiler: Text

I understand that donations do not establish an attorney-client relationship, and Matthew Hardin is not able to offer individual advice or acknowledgement to any donor. Matthew Hardin and his firm represent only Joshua Moon and Lolcow LLC. Upon receipt, all funds will become the sole property of Joshua Moon and will be held in trust for disbursement at his sole discretion, including but not limited to disbursement to support ongoing litigation or anticipated litigation in which the Hardin Law Office represents Mr. Moon or Lolcow LLC. Contributions are not tax deductible. I understand that if I have any questions about whether it is advisable for me to contribute to this fund, I am welcome to consult an independent attorney or tax professional.

 

[Kenneth Erwin Engelhardt]

@The Gays From LA this is an estimate per individual case not everything put together.

 

[KampungBoy]

That's not why they set up the IOLTA though. Null explicitly said that Hardin set it up to prevent discovery of Null's donors. Null claims that Epik threatened to use discovery to expose anyone donating money to his crowdfunder. (I still haven't seen an actual source for this claim, but this is what Null claims Epik said). So the IOLTA was not put in place to collect interest on $100k, it was mainly to anonymize the donors by protecting them from discovery.

What about those to things cancels each other out and also as an aside are you aware of a concept called "lying"?

 

[Ferengi of Romania]

Let's see this lawyer's retainer agreement and billable hours. Typically they charge by the hour in 15 min increments. A phone call for example. whether its 5 min or 10 min is billed at 15 min. Some lawyers have a minimum of a half hour, ie, one phone called is billed at a minimum of one half hour or hour; however, that's usually an arrangement experienced and well known litigation firms such as Skadden, Arps whose clients are in the business/financial sector-Goldman Sachs, for example-have with their clients. That's not the case here so if Null doesn't provide receipts he's probably griftting.

So if Null retained an attorney he'd have, at the very least, a retainer agreement signed by him and the attorney as to what he's expected to do, and the lawyer would provided Null with a monthly billing statement showing what work he did on his case like initiating legal proceedings, trust fund or paying Null's OnlyFans subs.

 

[Kenneth Erwin Engelhardt]

Let's see this lawyer's retainer agreement and billable hours. Typically they charge by the hour in 15 min increments. A phone call for example. whether its 5 min or 10 min is billed at 15 min. Some lawyers have a minimum of a half hour, ie, one phone called is billed at a minimum of one half hour or hour; however, that's usually an arrangement experienced and well known litigation firms such as Skadden, Arps whose clients are in the business/financial sector-Goldman Sachs, for example-have with their clients. That's not the case here so if Null doesn't provide receipts he's probably griftting.

So if Null retained an attorney he'd have, at the very least, a retainer agreement signed by him and the attorney as to what he's expected to do, and the lawyer would provided Null with a monthly billing statement showing what work he did on his case like initiating legal proceedings, trust fund or paying Null's OnlyFans subs.

Null is grifting his users. His litigation fund still says $157,886 despite receiving additional funding for this. Coincidence?

 

[Ferengi of Romania]

Null is grifting his users. His litigation fund still says $157,886 despite receiving additional funding for this. Coincidence?

I agree. Null's ball washers don't seem to understand how an attorney-client relationship works except for An Ominous and he's probably fine with the grift; in fact, I suspect he advised him how to cloak it so it appears Null's being upfront and honest but not really.

 

[polonium]

I said I'd update my post but I was lazy and it's been too long to edit that one but here's how you know it's absolutely a grift.

On his lolcow fund page his refund policy says this: (highlight is mine)

Refund Policy​

No Refunds​

All contributions made are considered as donations. Please note that once the donation has been made, we do not offer refunds.

Donations​

Donations are voluntary contributions made without the expectation of receiving any goods, services, or return on investment. They are made out of goodwill to support our litigation causes and are not tied to specific products or services.

So, this page seems to suggest that these donations will go towards litigation. The title of the page is "Lolcow LLC Litigation Fund" and right there in the definition and explanation of what they mean by "donation" it acknowledges that the donations are a gesture of support towards his effort to sue Epik and The Trannies.

But as we know, when you visit the actual donation page, there's a checkbox to tick to confirm that you agree with the following:

I understand that donations do not establish an attorney-client relationship, and Matthew Hardin is not able to offer individual advice or acknowledgement to any donor. Matthew Hardin and his firm represent only Joshua Moon and Lolcow LLC. Upon receipt, all funds will become the sole property of Joshua Moon and will be held in trust for disbursement at his sole discretion, including but not limited to disbursement to support ongoing litigation or anticipated litigation in which the Hardin Law Office represents Mr. Moon or Lolcow LLC. Contributions are not tax deductible. I understand that if I have any questions about whether it is advisable for me to contribute to this fund, I am welcome to consult an independent attorney or tax professional.

Which establishes very clearly that this money is a gift to null to spend how he pleases including litigation if he wants to. When he talks about it on the forum he more often talks about it in terms of a litigation fund rather than a general slush fund, which it plainly is.

Null's also claiming that the way the fund is established offers some kind of anonymity to his users but I don't see how it does. Null claims this in his post about the Cheese Fund:

Last week, I asked the community if they would be willing to support me in the pursuit of litigation against Epik and others. Over 1,600 people voted both that they would, and that they would financially support it.

My attorney, Matthew Hardin, who has represented us with both Melinda Scott's cases and now Greer's, has agreed to set up an IOLTA account. This is a trust account that he manages. It enjoys certain legal protections due to its nature and purpose. I hid on the toilet when a man in a dress knocked on my door.

Over the last week, we've quickly set up a custom charge form for the purpose of fundraising a conservative estimate for the cost of a lawsuit up until jury trial: $75,000. Having this money upfront, specially purposed for litigation, is a very strong position for opening moves against the companies and people detailed on the fund.
https://lolcowfund.hardin.law/

This form does accept traditional card payments and should work for international cardholders as well. I will stress that I've gone through some undertaking to ensure that the form is both incredibly simple and very secure: card numbers never touch any server that I manage, instead it goes directly to the bank. Further, the fund itself enjoys certain legal protections as it is an IOLTA. Epik actually threatened on Twitter that they'd use litigation to perform discovery and 'expose' Kiwi Farms users, which an IOLTA helps protect against. Our attorney is bound by the rules of professional conduct as well as by the attorney work product doctrine and the attorney-client privilege, and will take maximum steps to ensure your privacy.

There is more detailed explanation for all of this on the website. I would encourage anyone interested to read it over. The information on the site is what is binding, this is my layman's explanation of it.


I will also mention that literally just yesterday, Stripe decided to debank my podcast. I have received no explanation for this. They closed out 1776 Hosting's old account, and all integrations that my other LLC has with other companies to monetize my work. The only given reason is "Prohibited Business". They will not give more information. This also affects my ability to charge money for merchandise runs.

So while the site has been more stable than usual, I promise you certain people are still working every day to try and destroy it. There are continuous emails being sent to all providers, they are complaining to banks to try and figure out how to stymie my ability to make money even through my side projects, and then they are defaming us on Twitter to try and snowball accusations into a genuinely untenable position. The only way forward is to be aggressive.

His lawyer is going to have to keep proper accounting of where this money came from, I can't believe for a second there's no regulatory oversight of this kind of thing otherwise it would be the easiest and quickest form of money laundering known to mankind, so the donors' identifying information is being stored for sure. Null is claiming that you're protected by three things: the rules of professional conduct, the attorney work product doctrine, and the attorney-client privilege.

The last one is an out-and-out lie. The donation form leaves absolutely no wiggle room, there is no attorney-client relationship between the donor and null's lawyer, and he knew that when he wrote the post. Also, the attorney-client privilege only applies to communications between Null and Hardin, not to records. Those are covered in the second thing he claims, the attorney work product doctrine, but that's supposed to protect work done in preparation for litigation, so that you don't have to divulge all your strategy and notes to the opposition. I think it's a stretch to say that financial records of donors to a slush fund fall under "materials prepared in anticipation of litigation". So that just leaves "the rules of professional conduct", which sounds good, but really doesn't mean anything. He won't act in an unprofessional way with your private information. Great, that doesn't mean that he won't comply with a legal request for that information though, which is what we're trying to find protection against.

So in a nutshell the fund isn't for what he says it's for and doesn't offer the anonymity he says it does, because null is a lying grifter.

 

[KampungBoy]

How do you post on a website that talks about scam dono funds and then get tricked into donating to a scam dono fund that even tells you it's a scam dono fund.

The fallout from these things doesn't appear immediately, but it always does happen making me seriously wonder if this is Null's exit strategy.

 

[atmos driver]

Using the court system for ingroup cohesion or rallying is not what the court system is for. He needs to prove that he had meaningful reputational or financial loss, and that Epik caused this, to gain anything meaningful from Epik. Haven't seen him do this. His site and reputation started falling apart years before his lawsuit threats or the Epik tweet. Epik was also already disgraced and it's hard to believe the Epik tweet lowered his already dismal reputation or caused him financial loss. I think the psychology of his legal efforts has more to do with the overall, slow destruction of his website which preceded the Epik tweets by years.

 

[atmos driver]

Even if Moon had a legal win or two, how would that stop the destruction of his website? Through an additional sentence on Wikipedia, a single news article about it by an online magazine? That would be tiny compared to the widespread and consistent media attacks on his site for years.

Seems like Moon is trying to convince his Trump-obsessed "followers" that his situation is special enough to make it's way to the supreme court, just like Trump! They are so embedded in his cult, they think his site is that important. He's provoking their histrionic personalities to act as an indefinite piggy bank is my guess.

 

[The Gays From LA]

He needs to prove that he had meaningful reputational or financial loss

He doesn't though, I've already explained to you that he plans to file defamation per se lolsuits, where you don't have to prove damages. It's a different type of defamation lolsuit from the one where you have to prove damages. Also, he's not just filing defamation lolsuits. People need to stop treating Null's different lolsuits like it's a single lolsuit. Null is talking about filing several different lolsuits that are already at different stages. Null said that the lolsuit against LFJ (in California) is going to be some other kind of tortious business interference lolsuit, unrelated to the defamation lolsuits:

There is likely a good Tortuous Interference tort with Keffals and to a greater extent Liz Fong-Jones. That's a $75,000 gamble.
https://archive.is/6vtml#selection-933.0-933.127 https://archive.is/HrPCB#selection-7275.0-7275.127

I have been thinking a lot about Null suing LFJ in California, a State with very strong anti-SLAPP protections. It's almost inevitable that LFJ will go for an anti-SLAPP motion to prevent Null from obtaining his correspondence in discovery. Null can chip away at that, but it took Manson a year of litigation, filing motion after motion to get to a point where he could perform some limited discovery, but in the end he lost and the anti-SLAPP was upheld. I know Null is not a multi-millionaire rockstar like Manson is, so I don't know how much money Null can spend on all those motions. I think he should study the Manson case closely to learn which mistakes Manson's legal team made when they filed the lolsuit. Null would do best to make his strongest, most convincing accusations against LFJ from the get-go. I am personally against RICO accusations being used on the very first motion just to alarm the judge with very little to back them, but perhaps that's what Null has to do to convince the judge in California, who is very likely to be hostile, that his lolsuit isn't about protesting LFJ's right to protest, but rather about the fact that LFJ explicitly and intentionally designed, coordinated, promoted and implemented the #DropKiwiFarms campaigns for the purpose of aiding and abetting cybercrimes against KF. As someone who followed #DropKiwiFarms closely, there is no doubt in my mind that LFJ was using the public aspect of #DKF as a cover for the cybercriminal conspiracy that he aided and abetted against KF with the help of the German hacker Kevin Karhan. There is no doubt that Kevin Karhan involvement and intent against KF was cybercriminal from the very start. Kevin Karhan joined #DKF for the explicitly stated purpose, as admitted by himself in his tweets, of committing (cyber)crimes against KF, its owners and its members.

I can think of several ways that Null can argue that #DKF wasn't a legitimate protest, but rather a protest that was used to cover up cybercrimes:

- There's the 5 year campaign (that predates #DropKiwiFarms) by LFJ himself targeting of Cloudflare - there is literally no reason to deny someone DDoS protection unless you are planning to DDoS them or to have someone DDoS them. LFJ targeted Cloudflare not just to deny KF connectivity, but to deliberately place KF and its user-base in harm's way the moment they restored connectivity.
- There's the GrayHat Academy on Github and the posting there of falsely named DROP lists that were actually used as DDoS lists
- There's the poz.hiv hack (with LFJ literally involving non-consenting third parties in his cybercrimes, attempting to export KF user data to a non-suspecting web server)
- Multiple explicit threats from Keffals, LFJ, Kevin Karhan and others in #DropKiwiFarms to personally target Null and Kiwis off-line, including death threats on social media
- Admissions by #DropKiwiFarms that they were aware of the technical specifics/"fingerprint" of the DDoS attacks against KF, which is a strong indication that #DropKiwiFarms were coordinating with the hackers who carried out those attacks, who had told them what kinds of DDoS attacks they were using against KF

Null needs to make a very strong prima facie case that #DropKiwiFarms was set-up from the get-go to be a cybercriminal conspiracy with the mere superficial appearance of a protest movement. He needs to argue that the cybercrimes that happened against KF during #DropKiwiFarms - the poz.hiv hack, the DDoS attacks - weren't just an unfortunate and unforeseen side-effect of the campaign, but the very criminal intent of the campaign.

Again, I am not a fan of RICO accusations being used as a red light to alarm the judge on the very first motion, but perhaps that's what needs to be done here. I feel that mere "business interference" isn't strong enough to counter an anti-SLAPP. LFJ can too easily respond by saying that the very purpose of protest is to enable the public to interfere with some business conduct that is unethical or in violation of some rules. Null needs to show that LFJ went above and beyond legal protest to commit outright crimes, that crimes were always the goal and that the campaign was provably designed, coordinated and executed with cybercriminal intent.

 

[atmos driver]

He doesn't though, I've already explained to you that he plans to file defamation per se lolsuits, where you don't have to prove damages. It's a different type of defamation lolsuit from the one where you have to prove damages. Also, he's not just filing defamation lolsuits. People need to stop treating Null's different lolsuits like it's a single lolsuit. Null is talking about filing several different lolsuits that are already at different stages. Null said that the lolsuit against LFJ (in California) is going to be some other kind of tortious business interference lolsuit, unrelated to the defamation lolsuits:



I have been thinking a lot about Null suing LFJ in California, a State with very strong anti-SLAPP protections. It's almost inevitable that LFJ will go for an anti-SLAPP motion to prevent Null from obtaining his correspondence in discovery. Null can chip away at that, but it took Manson a year of litigation, filing motion after motion to get to a point where he could perform some limited discovery, but in the end he lost and the anti-SLAPP was upheld. I know Null is not a multi-millionaire rockstar like Manson is, so I don't know how much money Null can spend on all those motions. I think he should study the Manson case closely to learn which mistakes Manson's legal team made when they filed the lolsuit. Null would do best to make his strongest, most convincing accusations against LFJ from the get-go. I am personally against RICO accusations being used on the very first motion just to alarm the judge with very little to back them, but perhaps that's what Null has to do to convince the judge in California, who is very likely to be hostile, that his lolsuit isn't about protesting LFJ's right to protest, but rather about the fact that LFJ explicitly and intentionally designed, coordinated, promoted and implemented the #DropKiwiFarms campaigns for the purpose of aiding and abetting cybercrimes against KF. As someone who followed #DropKiwiFarms closely, there is no doubt in my mind that LFJ was using the public aspect of #DKF as a cover for the cybercriminal conspiracy that he aided and abetted against KF with the help of the German hacker Kevin Karhan. There is no doubt that Kevin Karhan involvement and intent against KF was cybercriminal from the very start. Kevin Karhan joined #DKF for the explicitly stated purpose, as admitted by himself in his tweets, of committing (cyber)crimes against KF, its owners and its members.

I can think of several ways that Null can argue that #DKF wasn't a legitimate protest, but rather a protest that was used to cover up cybercrimes:

- There's the 5 year campaign (that predates #DropKiwiFarms) by LFJ himself targeting of Cloudflare - there is literally no reason to deny someone DDoS protection unless you are planning to DDoS them or to have someone DDoS them. LFJ targeted Cloudflare not just to deny KF connectivity, but to deliberately place KF and its user-base in harm's way the moment they restored connectivity.
- There's the GrayHat Academy on Github and the posting there of falsely named DROP lists that were actually used as DDoS lists
- There's the poz.hiv hack (with LFJ literally involving non-consenting third parties in his cybercrimes, attempting to export KF user data to a non-suspecting web server)
- Multiple explicit threats from Keffals, LFJ, Kevin Karhan and others in #DropKiwiFarms to personally target Null and Kiwis off-line, including death threats on social media
- Admissions by #DropKiwiFarms that they were aware of the technical specifics/"fingerprint" of the DDoS attacks against KF, which is a strong indication that #DropKiwiFarms were coordinating with the hackers who carried out those attacks, who had told them what kinds of DDoS attacks they were using against KF

Null needs to make a very strong prima facie case that #DropKiwiFarms was set-up from the get-go to be a cybercriminal conspiracy with the mere superficial appearance of a protest movement. He needs to argue that the cybercrimes that happened against KF during #DropKiwiFarms - the poz.hiv hack, the DDoS attacks - weren't just an unfortunate and unforeseen side-effect of the campaign, but the very criminal intent of the campaign.

Again, I am not a fan of RICO accusations being used as a red light to alarm the judge on the very first motion, but perhaps that's what needs to be done here. I feel that mere "business interference" isn't strong enough to counter an anti-SLAPP. LFJ can too easily respond by saying that the very purpose of protest is to enable the public to interfere with some business conduct that is unethical or in violation of some rules. Null needs to show that LFJ went above and beyond legal protest to commit outright crimes, that crimes were always the goal and that the campaign was provably designed, coordinated and executed with cybercriminal intent.

You seem to know about the law. Can a patently criminal organization, one that is criminal from the ground up, win a lawsuit for censorship-oriented cybercriminal activities against them? Just as a general question, not necessarily referring to Kiwi Farms.

 

[polonium]

As someone who followed #DropKiwiFarms closely, there is no doubt in my mind that LFJ was using the public aspect of #DKF as a cover for the cybercriminal conspiracy that he aided and abetted against KF with the help of the German hacker Kevin Karhan.

It's not about what you think, or believe, or what you know, it's about what you can prove. Null has been whining and griping about this shadowy cabal of trannies who know every tech CEO's personal phone number, and break into his house and make his coke go flat and pick all the pepperoni off his pizza for years now but has he provided any actual evidence?

 

[The Gays From LA]

You seem to know about the law. Can a patently criminal organization, one that is criminal from the ground up, win a lawsuit for censorship-oriented cybercriminal activities against them? Just as a general question, not necessarily referring to Kiwi Farms.

I am not a lawyer and all I know about the law is based on what I've read in the media and on legal websites/journals, not personal experience. As for your question, that depends on what you mean with "a patently criminal organization". Are they an official registered "organization", or are they just loose individuals that appear to act in concert, like an organization would? Can their structure as an organization be proven, or is it implied?

Next, are they already found to be a "patently criminal" organization? What is their track record, legally? Is there a history of lolsuits, convictions and prosecutions in which they were proven to be "patently criminal"? Or are they just rumoured be engaged in crime, but is the law simply late to catch up with what they're actually doing? Is the purpose of the lolsuit to show the court of what they did, or to remind the court of what they were already caught doing?

Next, can a criminal organization have other crimes committed against it, as in "censorship-oriented cybercriminal activities" specifically? It should go without saying that criminals routinely commit crimes against other criminals in the criminal underworld, which is why the criminal underworld is itself a problem as it tends to increase the amount of crime and law-breaking.

If an "organization" is acting in a "patently criminal" way, or is perceived to be doing so, then people who are either victims or bystanders of that organization might decide to undertake various activities against that organization, aimed at stopping them from committing more crimes. Part of that campaign might include denying that criminal organization a public presence, which isn't cybercriminal in and of itself, but might violate inalienable rights, because even criminals and perceived criminals have a right to claim their innocence in a public forum.

However, even in righteously resisting a patently criminal organization, their opponents aren't allowed to break the law themselves in doing so. If their opponents resort to breaking the law in resisting that organization, they themselves are effectively in the process of bringing about a new criminal organization of their own.

With regards to KF itself, the questions I would ask myself would be 1) was the #DropKiwiFarms campaign absolutely necessary? 2) Wasn't there another way for #DropKiwiFarms to achieve their aims, that did not involve committing cybercrimes? and 3) Were the cybercrimes committed by #DropKiwiFarms against KF proportional to what they aimed to achieve? (Whatever that was, deplatforming KF, avenging trans people, etc) My personal answer to all these questions is NO. You don't get to openly blackmail entire ISPs with DDoS attacks just because you want to target one single website that you've already hacked with the aim of causing a user data-leak - which is what the poz.hiv hack during #DropKiwiFarms was supposed to do. #DropKiwiFarms were openly blackmailing ISPs, openly tweeting out 48 hour ultimatums to them, openly threatening to show up at their offices to attack their workers going into work, openly threatening to doxx and beat up KF users, openly calling for someone to murder Null, etc. Furthermore, both Caraballo and LFJ are privileged enough to have taken KF to court themselves, or to fund someone else's lolsuit against KF, if they felt they had a case against the site. Caraballo never did, because he's a far left anarchist who believes in accosting SCOTUS and "be gay do crimes". LFJ did sue Flow Chemical in Australia, but he had to resort to such forum shopping and libel tourism to sneak his way through the legal system and get a default judgement. LFJ knew that he did not have a case against KF in the US itself where hate speech is protected and Null can personally disavow whatever individual Kiwis are posting under Section 230. #DropKiwiFarms just want to use their own brand of thuggery against what they claim are thugs. That is not the way of a lawful system.

I hope that answers your question. I know I posed even more questions in return, but I'm just trying to show you what a fair and balanced view of both sides would look like in this case. Both Kiwis and TRAs think their own cause is righteous and that rules only stand in the way of that cause.