(Photo: Mark Lennihan/AP)

Elon Musk got his crazy futurism on at PandoMonthly. He's the best, isn't he? [PandoDaily]

London ain't got nothin' on New York's IPOs. [Wall Street Journal]

Meanwhile, the U.S. is going after a 24-year-old British kid who set up a portal to find pirated content, but never hosted any of it himself. FYI, America, ya look desperate. [New York Times]

Facebook is monitoring your chats for "criminal activity." Maybe keep your cybering to off the record Gchats? [Mashable]

You can now go on a road trip through California's national parks without ever having to leave your house. [Google]

Mr. Dotcom. (commons.wikimedia.orgAndreas_Bohnenstengel)

When did digital crimes get so badass? Accused criminals Kim Dotcom, Richard O'Dwyer and Julian Assange all built their empires on the web, and the U.S. government wants them to fly to American soil and pay the price. Which is funny, because traditionally, most extraditions to the U.S. were related to narcotics.

One side effect of being in American crosshairs? Insane popularity--almost premature martyrship--on the Internet. The people love Mr. Dotcom's outsized personality, Mr. O'Dwyer's precociousness, and Mr. Assange's rebelliousness. While we usually celebrate Internet entrepreneurs for giving us things like Facebook and Netflix, these three have made it to the next level by appealing to our sense of justice and our fondness for free music.

Every new development lends credence to the Internet outlaws. Mr. Dotcom seems to be winning his case in New Zealand, but the government there has declined to investigate accusations that the U.S. flubbed its raid of the Dotcom mansion. Mr. O'Dwyer netted the endorsement of the normally apolitical Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales (who is not wanted by any governments at the moment) and a petition on his behalf has garnered 200,000 signatures.

The case of Mr. Assange, the "cyberpunk revolutionary" who the U.S. is reportedly seeking to extradite for prosecution under the Espionage Act, is a bit stickier. Accusations of rape and assault in Sweden coupled with a stunt at the Ecuadorian embassy and his stiff performance as an anchor on Russia Today have failed to earn him many fans. However, his fan base remains strong. "Free Julian" T-shirt, anyone?

Mr. O'Dwyer, right, and Mr. Wales (Photo: Twitter/richardasaurus)

In the two years since U.S. customs and immigration officials came knocking on his dorm room door, Richard O'Dwyer has become something of a representative figure in the fight between Hollywood heavyweights and the Internet.

But a new ally has stepped foward to support the "unlikely poster boy for a culture war." Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has decided to intervene on Mr. O'Dwyer's behalf, launching a campaign on Change.org this weekend to stop the U.S. from extraditing him on copyright allegations.

If extradited, Mr. O'Dwyer faces up to ten years in prison. His alleged crime? Copyright violations related to developing a site called TVShack.net, a search engine that linked to online sources to watch TV shows and movies. Mr. Wales is careful to note that TVShack hosted user-submitted links, not copyrighted content. And when Mr. O'Dwyer received requests to remove copyrighted content, he complied.

In fact, as Mr. Wales told The Guardian, Mr. O'Dwyer sounds less like a criminal and more like the next Zuck.

"When I met Richard, he struck me as a clean-cut, geeky kid. Still a university student, he is precisely the kind of person we can imagine launching the next big thing on the internet," Wales wrote in a comment article for the Guardian.

In his petition, addressed to UK Home Secretary Theresa May, Mr. Wales calls Mr. O'Dwyer "the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public." Saving Mr. O'Dwyer, he argues, would be tantamount to the next "big victory" for "the public," after successfully defeating SOPA and PIPA.

O'Dwyer is not a US citizen, he's lived in the UK all his life, his site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the US. America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil.

The internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand up for our rights online.

The petition already has 29,627 out of the 35,000 signatures Mr. Wales is seeking. Thanks to a well-chosen hoodie, Mr. O'Dwyer may soon have other Internet denizens on his side.