Kim Dotcom's 'Mega' goes live

[Lynx-lynx]

"A year after file-storage site MegaUpload was brought down by U.S. law enforcement officials targeting piracy, flamboyant founder Kim DotCom has cut the ribbon on his new site, Mega.

"As of this minute one year ago #Megaupload was destroyed by the US Government. Welcome to http://Mega.co.nz," DotCom tweeted today.

Not long after, he followed up with a tweet trumpeting what he said was the site's immediate popularity: "Site is extremely busy. Currently thousands of user registrations PER MINUTE .... "

"users will get 50GB of storage for free, the infamous entrepreneur tweeted today.

DotCom also tweeted that his lawyers are working on giving former premium users their premium statuses on the new site but that the site "can't at this time."

50GB is a huge amount of free storage right off the bat. DotCom's tweet comes a day after another cloud storage service, MediaFire, announced it would be offering 50GB of free storage .... "

http://news.cnet.com/8300-5_3-0.html?keyword=kim+dot

[Lynx-lynx]

My view? If it's legal it's legal, and by golly there'll be lots of people testing its legality.

[forsooth]

the wonder of science
of technology
of the internet
of trans-oceanic fiber cables
of mega storage
of "lawyers"

[kennyc]

Hmmmmm....

[Alexander Turcic]

Curious about the technical aspects... the site loads *very* fast for me. They are using a geo-DNS routed content delivery network, so ping times are excellent no matter where you're located. IP owner is the Internet Registry for Africa.

# whois 154.53.224.162
% This is the AfriNIC Whois server.

% Note: this output has been filtered.

% Information related to '154.0.0.0 - 154.255.255.255'

inetnum: 154.0.0.0 - 154.255.255.255
netname: AFRINIC-20090508
descr:
descr: AfriNIC - www.afrinic.net
descr: Allocation for Africa - This block is in use
descr: by AfriNIC for allocating/assigning to networks
descr: in the AfriNIC service region.
descr: More information - whois.afrinic.net.
descr: Abuse - please querry the whois db for the
descr: contacts of the assigned/allocated prefix.
descr:
country: MU
org: ORG-AFNC1-AFRINIC
admin-c: EMB2-AFRINIC
tech-c: EMB2-AFRINIC
status: ALLOCATED-UNSPECIFIED
mnt-by: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
mnt-lower: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
source: AFRINIC # Filtered
parent: 0.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255

organisation: ORG-AFNC1-AFRINIC
org-name: African Network Information Center - (AfriNIC Ltd)
org-type: RIR
country: MU
address: 11th Floor,
address: Raffles Tower,
address: Lot 19
address: Cybercity
e-mail: contact@afrinic.net
e-mail: cto@afrinic.net
phone: +230 941 6610
fax-no: +230 466 6758
admin-c: AF7-AFRINIC
tech-c: AF7-AFRINIC
mnt-ref: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
mnt-ref: AFRINIC-DB-MNT
mnt-by: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
remarks: =======================================
remarks: For more information on AFRINIC assigned blocks,
remarks: querry whois.afrinic.net port 43, or the web based
remarks: query at http://whois.afrinic.net or www.afrinic.net
remarks: website: www.afrinic.net
remarks: Other Contacts:
remarks: ===============
remarks: hostmaster@afrinic.net - for IP resources
remarks: new-member@afrinic.net - for new members and other
remarks: inquiries.
source: AFRINIC # Filtered

person: ERNEST MWIRIMA BYARUHANGA
address: AfriNIC
phone: +230 403 5100
fax-no: +230 466 6758
e-mail: ernest@afrinic.net
nic-hdl: EMB2-AFRINIC
mnt-by: ernest-mnt
source: AFRINIC # Filtered

Nameservers appear to be located in New Zealand and Germany, judging from the labeling:

nsnz1.mega.co.nz
nsnz2.mega.co.nz
nsde1.mega.co.nz
nsde2.mega.co.nz

inetnum: 103.244.180.0 - 103.244.183.255
netname: DAHL-NZ
descr: DIGIWEB ADVANCED HOSTING LIMITED
descr: Unit 3b Sir William Pickering Drive
descr: Canterbury Technology Park
country: NZ

However, IPs for nsde1.mega.co.nz and nsde2.mega.co.nz resolve back to Africa Internet Registry.

Traceroute makes me think that they are using cogentco.

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

My view? If it's legal it's legal, and by golly there'll be lots of people testing its legality.

The new service has nothing to do with legality. It is about hiding the data from the service provider, so that they can deny knowledge of illegal activities, and making it difficult for law enforcement to collect evidence.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

However, IPs for nsde1.mega.co.nz and nsde2.mega.co.nz resolve back to Africa Internet Registry.

Maybe you already know, but I googled Cybercity, which does actually exist, in Mauritius, as an alternate name for Ebene City.

From Wikipedia:

Ebene Cyber Tower hosts the AFRINIC, the internet registry for Africa. Numerous recent financial scams attempted via email and social networks have originated from IP addresses assigned by AFRINIC in the Ebene Cyber Tower.

Perhaps the FBI will look into giving the Raffles Tower a similar reputation.

[twobits]

I find their requirement that you submit what you wite using their API to them for review a bit odd, and think that will limit the use of it a lot more then they obviously do.

Originally Posted by BWinmill

The new service has nothing to do with legality. It is about hiding the data from the service provider, so that they can deny knowledge of illegal activities, and making it difficult for law enforcement to collect evidence.

Also so employees can't snoop your data, or if a cracker gets in, they can't read the data, and to prevent a civil suit from being able to get at all your data in discovery without you knowing etc.
I am aware of Wuala, and SpiderOak that also strive to do this. Does anyone know of more?

I did not put the refer a friend links as I think they are not allowed not in the message body (even though technically they are not affiliate links), however using one would give you more storage, so pm me if you want one.

BTW, does anyone know of a chart of storage servers that includes the time duration you can have between logins without risking your data being wiped?

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

The new service has nothing to do with legality. It is about hiding the data from the service provider, so that they can deny knowledge of illegal activities, and making it difficult for law enforcement to collect evidence.

That's a very narrow view to take. If they have no knowledge of the uploaded contents, and in fact no way of knowing, it 's no longer their problem. Would you blame the USPS or Fedex for delivering illegal substances, threatening letters or similar?

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

The new service has nothing to do with legality. It is about hiding the data from the service provider, so that they can deny knowledge of illegal activities, and making it difficult for law enforcement to collect evidence.

like locking your house door?
or car trunk?

telltales!

[forsooth]

forgot

or closing blinds?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Would you blame the USPS or Fedex for delivering illegal substances, threatening letters or similar?

So much in life is a matter of degree.

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

If they have no knowledge of the uploaded contents, and in fact no way of knowing, it 's no longer their problem.

I agree with you. If Dotcom is ever prosecuted for the old megaupload, the judge or jury will need to make a judgement, based on evidence, as to whether the cyberlocker contents were in fact commonly infringing, and whether he knew this.

[DianNC]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

That's a very narrow view to take. If they have no knowledge of the uploaded contents, and in fact no way of knowing, it 's no longer their problem. Would you blame the USPS or Fedex for delivering illegal substances, threatening letters or similar?

Probably. If they were specifically created for those purposes.

[rogue_librarian]

But that's exactly the point, they are not. Will those services be used for files that infringe on third party's copyright? Of course, but there are a lot of legitimate use cases as well. How, exactly, does Mega differ from Rapidshare (who really got its act together recently, or so I hear), or, dare I say it, Dropbox? All those services can be abused, but all serve a legal purpose.

[DianNC]

^^^ Pretty much what one of KimDotCom's attorney's taunted.