Hands On With Kim Dotcom's New Mega

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Nice to see Kim Dotcom has learned his lesson...oh wait, no he hasn't. The author of this article violates copyright law on his very first upload just for kicks. :rolleyes:

After agreeing, you arrive at your Cloud Drive—the file manager where all of your everything lives. When you select one of your files or folders to upload you realize how fast this thing is. I went ahead and uploaded Metallica's Kill Em All in just a few minutes. From there, with a single right-click, I can generate a download link for the album. And then I can send it to whoever I want. It's Megaupload with a file manager.
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I am a little lost... how can someone get it if only you have the key?
 
Nice. When the world governments bring this one down, they better take their filthy hands off my personal files of which I own copyright.
 
This is nothing compared to the absolutely huge server farms being setup in China and Russia over the last year.
 
Sounds like a good service. I dont' participate in file share unless it's documents etc. I like the whole encryption thing. The Feds should keep their hands off our personal stuff.
 
GaryJohnson said:
Someone gets the key if you share the key with them. For example, you can post the key in a forum post.
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Iunno, it sort of seems like you just post up a link like in the old days. I started skimming half way through, so if I missed how it really works....
 
I like the generous amount of space. If he were a little less open about certain uses, I would consider it for temporary/secondary backup (encrypted, of course). 50GB is quite generous.
 
It's not like he made it and said, use this for piracy. He just made it and doesn't care if it's used one way or another. And I'm quite alright with that.
 
pothb said:
Iunno, it sort of seems like you just post up a link like in the old days. I started skimming half way through, so if I missed how it really works....
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From a user standpoint it basically works the same way. The difference is that Mega doesn't have the key, so they don't know what you are sharing - and theoretically can't be responsible when people use their service for piracy. Plausible deniability - (or at least they think it is.) In reality people are going to be throwing up keys all over the internet.
 
GaryJohnson said:
From a user standpoint it basically works the same way. The difference is that Mega doesn't have the key, so they don't know what you are sharing - and theoretically can't be responsible when people use their service for piracy. Plausible deniability - (or at least they think it is.) In reality people are going to be throwing up keys all over the internet.
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So it's a lot like posting passworded RAR files, only they do the RARing for you.
 
GaryJohnson said:
From a user standpoint it basically works the same way. The difference is that Mega doesn't have the key, so they don't know what you are sharing - and theoretically can't be responsible when people use their service for piracy. Plausible deniability - (or at least they think it is.) In reality people are going to be throwing up keys all over the internet.
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They're going to be sued again. It's just going to take a lot to prove wrong doing. Essentially, I think it's going to come down to how fast they respond to a takedown notice. If a user uploads a copyrighted file and shares the key on a forum. The spies/bots for that forum will generate the notice that X-key is hosting illegal files.

If Mega doesn't respond and remove the key/etc, that is where liability gets murky and they may be held liable. Especially since the MPAA/RIAA can download the file and verify the contents with the leaked key.

Being the file is encrypted and the key is what is leaked, I'd assume the entire file would need to be deleted from the server. What this does do is allow people to use VPN's to upload files anonymously (they hope), and leak the key - wait for it to be purged, then rinse and repeat. I'm sure some smart pirate could write a script/app to automatically check a file key to make sure it is still good, once it detects it isn't, it could automatically reupload the file and generate a new key. Circle jerk.
 
Spidey329 said:
They're going to be sued again. It's just going to take a lot to prove wrong doing. Essentially, I think it's going to come down to how fast they respond to a takedown notice. If a user uploads a copyrighted file and shares the key on a forum. The spies/bots for that forum will generate the notice that X-key is hosting illegal files.

If Mega doesn't respond and remove the key/etc, that is where liability gets murky and they may be held liable. Especially since the MPAA/RIAA can download the file and verify the contents with the leaked key.

Being the file is encrypted and the key is what is leaked, I'd assume the entire file would need to be deleted from the server. What this does do is allow people to use VPN's to upload files anonymously (they hope), and leak the key - wait for it to be purged, then rinse and repeat. I'm sure some smart pirate could write a script/app to automatically check a file key to make sure it is still good, once it detects it isn't, it could automatically reupload the file and generate a new key. Circle jerk.
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Thats the thing, megaupload had the fastest compliance for DCMA takedown notices out of the top 5 major file sharing hosts...
 
When you think of all the time and money that's been wasted by our government and the stooge corporations.

It's all about one thing -- money. Nobody seems to understand that the crappy new Michael Bay movie isn't worth $20 to ANYONE. Same goes for lot of other media music/movies/games.

Add up all the Call of Duty games you could purchase when they were new - you are looking at easily 500-1000 dollars right? depending on which versions you got. Worth it?

The industry is kicking and screaming that they can't make 750,000,000 off a remake or rehash.. .deal with it. Steam is moving in the right direction with some of the sales they have. You see people paying for software they (sometimes) never even use because the price is right!

I never used the original megaupload -- will probably not use this one. But I'm all for getting the government out of my personal life, personal files, and the idea of free or very cheap software.
 
How is this different than using GMail to send a file attachment, a license key or some other non-GPL licensed software ?


I think they seriously need to put their effort into punishing the people that perform the illegal acts, and quit needlessly persecuting people who come up with innovative products, and technologies.


Nobody gives a 2nd thought to prosecuting people who jailbreak apple devices, in violation of their EULA, but we continue to go after this guy because he makes money off data usage and ads.

Pathetic.


"Haters, shall hate henceforth."
 
Dropbox is similar isn't it? I can give anyone a download link to my files. Though they don't offer 50jiggz
 
BloodDonor said:
Thats the thing, megaupload had the fastest compliance for DCMA takedown notices out of the top 5 major file sharing hosts...
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But do they even need to comply with takedowns given this new encryption scheme? One could argue that the infringing entity is the forum where the Mega user posted the key/link pair. What Mega is hosting isn't the infringing content, it's something that could potentially be used to construct the infringing content, but the full "instructions" for building the content are hosted wherever the user shares the link & key.

Another interesting aspect of this: if an entity attempts to verify that the key & encrypted file posted somewhere are infringing content, aren't they in violation of the DMCA when they decrypt it without authorization?
 
GaryJohnson said:
Another interesting aspect of this: if an entity attempts to verify that the key & encrypted file posted somewhere are infringing content, aren't they in violation of the DMCA when they decrypt it without authorization?
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If someone posts the key and link on a public forum then I would think that that person is giving anyone who see's it permission to do what they want, IMHO anyways.
 
The author of this article violates copyright law on his very first upload just for kicks.
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Not necessarily. He uploaded what I assume is his purchased or format shifted copies of his music to his online storage. He then generated a download link for it. So long as he doesn't give that out to anyone else, he hasn't broken copyright law. He only breaks copyright law on the distribution of the files via the link. As usual, the disclaimer IANAL applies :).

But do they even need to comply with takedowns given this new encryption scheme?
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Yes they do. If they comply they get protection from prosecution for the infringing material. What is different is now because of the encryption, there is no way for Mega to validate any claims of infringement nor can they be forced to write a bot to auto pull infringing material because they have no access to the encryption key.

Another interesting aspect of this: if an entity attempts to verify that the key & encrypted file posted somewhere are infringing content, aren't they in violation of the DMCA when they decrypt it without authorization?
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They won't be using any kind of a third party program to break the encryption. They will almost exclusively be using the keys the pirates will post to decrypt the files since those will be posted somewhere. Then verify the files are infringing and send a DMCA take down request.
 
LurkerLito said:
Yes they do. If they comply they get protection from prosecution for the infringing material. What is different is now because of the encryption, there is no way for Mega to validate any claims of infringement nor can they be forced to write a bot to auto pull infringing material because they have no access to the encryption key.
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So much for the protection, the last time that protection didn't do anything to stop the raid.
 
metallica right off the bat

you gotta admit, that is pretty funny
 
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