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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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Why rely on random anonymous compilations?

I just linked the first source I saw in the wild, thanks, this is better.

So far looks like no defendants or lawyers for any of them have made an appearance.

Is that not the norm for anonymous wire fraud or whatever charge they're levying here? I'm near-certain none of the Does (none of the major ones, at least) live in the US.

this way the most likely outcome is Microsoft secures a default judgement against them.

I'm a rube unfamiliar with the American legal system - what do the results of that typically look like in ghost cases like this? Does Microsoft get their damages, if yes then whence?

Is that not the norm for anonymous wire fraud or whatever charge they're levying here? I'm near-certain none of the Does (none of the major ones, at least) live in the US.

Probably? Microsoft did secure subpoenas to various ISPs to try and determine the actual identities of the individuals involved. Whether that can be done remains unclear.

I'm a rube unfamiliar with the American legal system - what do the results of that typically look like in ghost cases like this? Does Microsoft get their damages, if yes then whence?

Microsoft is going to get a legal judgment from a US court that X individuals are responsible for Y damages. How likely they are to actually get Y damages likely depends on the legal jurisdiction that X individuals reside in and their perspective on enforcing the judgement of US courts. US courts, for example, won't respect foreign civil judgements regarding liability for speech where that speech would be protected by the First Amendment in the United States.