Kim Dotcom's launch of Mega has touted the big tagline of being bigger, better, faster, stronger, and safer, but while Dotcom promises 128 bits of AES encryption and the use of 2048 bits of RSA public/private key infrastructure, I'm not too convinced about the last aspect of his sell: the safety.
If there’s one place that you want to be for the launch of Mega.co.nz, it’s within Kim Dotcom’s mansion. That’s precisely where I’ve been today. Sure we knew that Dotcom was larger than life, but actually being at the mansion is a different story. Elaborate statues and expensive pieces of art, giant kitchen sized fish tanks and sprawling pools. It’s an incredible sight.
Kim Dotcom may see himself as being at war with Hollywood, but the man has quite a sense of theatrics himself. The show he put on for the world tonight at his mansion outside Auckland was audacious and loud, featuring a Maori-themed musical performance by Tiki Taane, a raid re-enactment complete with helicopters marked "FBI," and dancing girls clad in military-style dress (but with miniskirts). That's how Dotcom announced his new service, Mega, to the world.
An Ontario judge has refused a US request for unfettered access to the data on Megaupload servers hosted in Canada. The ruling is another sign that overseas courts are not giving US officials the degree of deference they've grown accustomed to in this case under US law.
The U.S. Department of Justice did not mislead a court and attempt to entrap file storage site Megaupload on copyright infringement charges, the agency said in a new filing in the case.
Kim Dotcom is still fighting a legal battle in New Zealand against the United States over alleged copyright infringement and piracy.
Kim Dotcom's upcoming Mega website Me.ga has had its domain name seized by the African nation of Gabon, with a government minister saying his country will not be used as a base for copyright infringement.
Hollywood's lobbyists are a bit alarmed at the possibility that Megaupload users may be getting their data back.
The Motion Picture Association of America told a federal judge in Virginia today that any decision to allow users of the embattled file locker to access their own files could "compound the massive infringing conduct already at issue in this criminal litigation." Megaupload's servers with approximately 25 petabytes of data are currently unplugged, offline, and in storage at Dulles, Va.-based Carpathia Hosting.
Kyle Goodwin, the Ohio videographer who was chosen by the Electronic Frontier Foundation as a representative of innocent Megaupload users, has asked a Virginia federal judge to unseal search warrants and other documents related to the January raid on Megaupload's Virginia servers. In a brief filed on Goodwin's behalf, EFF argues Goodwin needs access to the documents to make his case for the return of his property. The civil liberties group also contends that the public has a right to know how the raid was conducted.
When Megaupload's servers were grabbed by the government earlier this year, plenty of non-infringing content was taken along with pirated files. Kyle Goodwin, an Ohio man who makes his living taping high-school sports events, stepped forward to be the poster-boy for users who became "collateral damage" when they lost access to their legitimate files stored on Megaupload.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has ordered an inquiry into the Government Communications Security Bureau (the country’s equivalent of the FBI) concerning the wiretapping of individuals in the Megaupload case. It is believed that the GCSB acted unlawfully while helping police locate some targets leading up to the raid on Dotcom’s mansion earlier this year.
According to a report from the Prime Minister’s office, the GCSB allegedly acquired communications without prior approval from necessary authorities in some instances.
