mega

Thousands of credentials for accounts associated with New Zealand-based file storage service Mega have been published online, ZDNet has learned.

The text file contains over 15,500 usernames, passwords, and files names, indicating that each account had been improperly accessed and file names scraped.

Patrick Wardle, chief research officer and co-founder at Digita Security, found the text file in June after it had been uploaded to malware analysis site VirusTotal some months earlier by a user purportedly in Vietnam. Wardle passed the data to ZDNet.

A Hong Kong judge has come to the rescue of Kim Dotcom, the accused internet pirate and founder of Megaupload.

With Dotcom running low on cash and his ability to pay his legal fees in doubt, Hong Kong's High Court granted him access to some of his money there, according to the South China Morning Post. Wilson Chan Ka-shun, the Hong Kong judge who issued the ruling, has allowed Dotcom to receive a monthly amount equivalent to $80,000 New ZeaIand dollars ($53,000 USD) to pay living and legal expenses, the Post reported.

Kim Dotcom has never been shy. And in December 2011, roughly a month before things for Dotcom were set to drastically change, he still oozed with bravado: Dotcom released a song ("The Megaupload Song") in conjunction with producer Printz Board. It featured a number of major pop stars—including the likes of Kanye West, Jamie Foxx, and Serena Williams—all singing that they "love Megaupload." If the star power wasn't enough, Dotcom placed an exclamation point at the end. In the lyrics, he claimed that Megaupload comprised four percent of all Internet traffic.

In the wake of his failure to make a dent in New Zealand politics, Kim Dotcom has said his name alone spoiled the chances for the alliance of the Internet Party and the Mana Movement.

The result was truly dismal: the Internet Party failed to secure a seat, and Mana's leader Hone Harawira lost his seat, as New Zealand's conservative National Party led by Dotcom's arch-enemy John Key swept back into power with 48.1 per cent of the vote.

Exactly who owns and controls privacy company and website Mega is up in the air after Kim Dotcom announced his separation from wife Mona last week.

Mona Dotcom held the largest shareholding in Mega through a company MD Corporate Trustees until earlier this month when just over 10,000 shares were transferred to Hong Kong resident Zhao Wu Shen.

MD Corporate Trustees is now the third largest shareholder in the company, behind Zao and Wolf Dieter Ortmann, based in Germany. But with the Dotcom's separation, founder Kim Dotcom's status in the company is unclear.

A large trove of electronic communications cited as evidence in the US Department of Justice's copyright infringement case against Kim Dotcom and his company Megaupload were "illegally" obtained, the lawyer representing the file sharing service claims.

Over the weekend, the US DoJ released a 191 page document [PDF] laying out its evidence in the case against Dotcom and his associates.

Kim Dotcom's "privacy company" Mega is developing secure email services to run on its entirely non-US-based server network as intense pressure from US authorities forces other providers to close.

Last week, Lavabit, which counted NSA leaker Edward Snowdon as a user, and Silent Circle both closed. Lavabit's owner, Ladar Levison, said he was shutting it down to avoid becoming "complicit in crimes against the American people".

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is seeking developers for his file sharing service Mega, which he has revealed is also working on encrypted email and IM.

In a live chat hosted on the New Zealand Herald website, the controversial entrepreneur said the key to making encryption a global success was ease of use.

A Kiwi court has ruled that Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can sue New Zealand's spy agency for illegal surveillance, opening the government up to more scrutiny over its role in an unlawful 2011 police raid on the internet entrepreneur's home.

The New Zealand Appeals Court rejected an application from the attorney general, acting on behalf of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), to exclude the agency from the lawsuit. New Zealand's High court ruled last year the agency could be held liable for illegally spying on Dotcom.

Online privacy advocate Kim Dotcom has plans to expand Mega, his new file-sharing site, to include secure email, chat, voice, video and mobile services.

Dotcom made the announcement Saturday via Twitter, saying the updates will arrive "in the coming years."

This tweet, along with several others, seems to position Mega as a stronghold for Internet privacy and freedom. Dotcom cautioned against using U.S.-based servers and email providers — calling out Gmail, iCloud and Skype, in particular — because the American government can demand access to user data, he said.