Mega Finds New Home, Dotcom Says 115
hypnosec writes "Kim Dotcom has revealed that Megaupload's successor, Mega, which is reportedly launching on January 20, 2013, will be operating through a new domain name: Mega.co.nz. Through a tweet Dotcom announced that Mega has found a new home and that the new domain name is protected by the law. Dotcom also revealed that lobbyists won't be able to do anything about this, as 'judges are not influenced by politics in New Zealand.' Recent announcements about Mega's domain — Me.ga — didn't go as planned following a decision by the Government of Gabon to suspend the domain name. Dotcom had announced at the time that despite the blockage, Mega would launch as planned."
Question - "Judges are not influenced by politics" (Score:3)
Re:Question - "Judges are not influenced by politi (Score:5, Insightful)
Who sets the laws in the first place and who changes laws? (Don't say "the people" you'll be modded down as mental.)
Everyone knows it's those with the cash.
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Cash
Rules
Everything
Around
Me.ga
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Re:Question - "Judges are not influenced by politi (Score:5, Interesting)
no no no.. its called "The Golden Rule"
he who has the gold makes the rules
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I couldn't agree more, but there is a problem: there is no "voting public" in the sense of a single entity making rational, well informed decisions. In a land of one hundred million voters, each voter can only execute one hundred-millionth of a decision and maybe try to influence a handful more hundred-millionths through
Re:Question - "Judges are not influenced by politi (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it possible we should think of something similar in representative democracies? What if there were a provision to allow the creation of agents with agendas?
It's called a political party.
Yes, I know the current party system is deeply flawed. But what you describe is the idea of political parties, plain and simple.
There is also a more modern system with a more fine-grained and fluid agency system like this, invented by the Pirate Party, called Liquid Democracy. GIYF.
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Is it possible we should think of something similar in representative democracies? What if there were a provision to allow the creation of agents with agendas?
It's called a political party.
Yes, I know the current party system is deeply flawed. But what you describe is the idea of political parties, plain and simple.
There is also a more modern system with a more fine-grained and fluid agency system like this, invented by the Pirate Party, called Liquid Democracy. GIYF.
Unfortunately most countries seem to be in the situation where the "old parties" are doing their best to make it hard for new parties to join the game.
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That particular problem can only be addressed constitutionally, and would break new ground for some constitutions such as the US one, which does not even mention the word "party" in the context of "political party". Here is another thought. One party is clearly not enough; two have come to represent a false divide; yet 1,000 may be confidently predicted to be too many. So I am somewhat afraid of what I might wish for in this vein.
It's not only that existing parties are jealous of new ones. They are jealous
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Actually, it has nothing whatsoever to do with parties. In fact it is a deliberate end run around parties gaming the system. What I described is hiring professional aggregate voters to exercise your proxy to further ends THEY formulate and to which you subscribe. It effectively renders such considerations as how a candidate parts their hair, the tone of their voice, whether their spouse is attractive and personable - inoperative, since the professional aggregate voters' only pu
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Being sanguine about democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
The politicians who receive the most votes.
That means "the people," through their delegates.
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No, it just means the delegates, supposedly representing the people. And we know perfectly well they haven't been representing the people for ages.
Classical Athens had a real democracy, where citizens voted directly on issues and policies. What we have now is not that. What we have now is engineered to give the public an illusion of power, not real power.
Re:Being sanguine about democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
For sufficiently unpoor and non-female values of "citizens".
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Point of thought: This system did have the advantage that the voters had the time, interest and education to actually care about what they were voting on.
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plus ca change...
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I'd just like to take this opportunity to say I'm really glad we don't do everything by popular vote.
People are jackasses.
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You assume that voting is a reliable method for determining the will of the people. There are many, many, many reasons why it is not. These range from social reasons, like low voter turnout, to systemic mathematical flaws, like winner take all elections.
Mega Conz (Score:5, Funny)
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that's just the tcp-based version.
the udp one is mega-clns
(networking-nerd joke alert)
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At least he went for .co instead of .org
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Wouldn't even be a surprised. He did get turned around by law enforcement back when they busted him the first (or was it second?) time in Germany, and sold out his "partners" before. So it's definitely not beyond him.
Launching Jan 20, 2012! (Score:2, Informative)
Seems like it is a bit belated.
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Did you look unde the boken keyboad?
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Where did I leave the keys to the DeLoean??
Try asking here. [wherethefu...mykeys.com]
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this reminds me of that 1967 British comedy "At Last, the 1948 show" with some of the Monty Python crew (before they became monty python) which poked fun at the habit of the BBC of letting shows sit in the can years before finally airing them.
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shows sit in the can years before finally airing them.
"if its yellow, let it mellow.
if its brown, flush it down."
(seen on a sign at a country hotel that had an, uhm, interesting bathroom setup. water conservation can be taken too far, sometimes).
not sure why I thought of this. but it is what it is.
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Sounds like (Score:5, Funny)
Domain sounds like Mega Cons when read aloud.
Not a shock, or anything. ;)
Re:Mega Cons? (Score:4, Funny)
next thing you know its going to be a full fledged vegas convention with all kinds of weirdo's dressed in costume!
Huh... (Score:1)
Looks like new zealand is thinking maybe being a bitch for the american entertainment industry isnt such a good deal.
Time to send in the lawyers again. maybe some 'sanctions' will happen too.
Can't have these countries thinking they can hide from hollywood.
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time machine? (Score:2, Informative)
"..reportedly launching on January 20, 2012."
Re:time machine? (Score:5, Informative)
We'll, it is reported to be launching on January 20, 2012. The report is just wrong.
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They're the wrong side of the international dateline, so time goes backwards, just like in Australia.
Or am I getting confused with the toilets?
Good luck with that! (Score:2, Insightful)
I just looked up the Wikipedia article called "Internet censorship in New Zealand" and followed all the references.
All it will take to get this very easily shut down is a bit of deliberate seeding with kiddie porn, or making up something similar.
Absolutely will not work.
Under the Piracy category, huh Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Despite all that has been said on this particular topic, I wonder why this is news is classified with a skull and crossbones, not under YRO, and tagged as piracy.
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Because he is a scammer that got caught for piracy. He is not a freedom fighter.
Okay US Government shill. If you say so, repeatedly, under anonymous coward, then it must be true!!!
Re:Under the Piracy category, huh Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Kimble was a famous pirate in the early/mid 90s (Romkids), who narced on BBS when he got caught carding. He then ran a bunch of investment scams, got busted in Germany and Hong Kong. Moved onto New Zealand after burning those bridges, ran a site that gave rewards and turned a blind eye to piracy of everything under the sun. No idea what his next venture is going to be, but the man is a pirate by reputation.
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Because Kimble was a famous pirate in the early/mid 90s (Romkids), who narced on BBS when he got caught carding. He then ran a bunch of investment scams, got busted in Germany and Hong Kong. Moved onto New Zealand after burning those bridges, ran a site that gave rewards and turned a blind eye to piracy of everything under the sun. No idea what his next venture is going to be, but the man is a pirate by reputation.
When battling against a cabal of scoundrels (US govt/copyright cartel), another scoundrel is the perfect weapon, or at least one of the only effective weapons, since the cabal controls the legitimate channels already.
Gotham police would jail Batman in a heartbeat too if they could.
Strat
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When battling against a cabal of scoundrels (US govt/copyright cartel), another scoundrel is the perfect weapon,
That's what the US thought about the Taliban and Al Qaeda back when they were fighting the russians. Turned out to be not the smartest of ideas.
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Yes, because one guy running an upload website is exactly like a population of violent, oppressive, religious fanatics.
Well, except that Kim plans on providing uploaders with an encrypted "burqa" for their data. :)
Strat
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Yes, because one guy running an upload website is exactly like a population of violent, oppressive, religious fanatics.
No, you fool. Because two bad guys fighting each other does not miraculously turn one of them into a good guy. Doesn't matter if it's career criminals vs. copyright mafia or russians vs. taliban.
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I'll ignore the "fool" crack, as I remember a truism about those who call others fools, so therefor I'll just consider the source.
Making someone a criminal is also the first move of an authoritarian regime to suppress the speech of opponents/dissidents, justify imprisonment, and destroy the legitimacy of opponents/dissidents and their actions to oppose the regime. Just saying. I don't think
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Making someone a criminal is also the first move of an authoritarian regime to suppress the speech of opponents/dissidents
Yes, but the reverse does not hold true - not everyone treated as a criminal is actually a heroic freedom fighter. Even in China, some of the people in jail are simply robbers, rapists and murderers.
The world is not that simple and nobody, including the US, is strong and independent enough not to have to resort to dealing with unsavory regimes, leaders, and people.
True, and I'll be the first to agree that "good" and "bad" are often relative.
But you're trying to distract from the point I made. That two bad guys fighting are still two bad guys fighting. And the fact that they are fighting each other, does not miraculously turn one of them into a good guy we should root for.
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But you're trying to distract from the point I made.
No, I'm trying to explain to you how your point is only tangentially relevant.
That two bad guys fighting are still two bad guys fighting. And the fact that they are fighting each other, does not miraculously turn one of them into a good guy we should root for.
Ok, bad analogy time. Even worse, it's not even a bad car analogy.
Say for example you have two mortal enemies.
One is a big, dangerous, bruiser and the other one is weaker, but still a serious threat. Having the two of them fight, while lending just enough help secretly to your scrawnier enemy to prevent their defeat without providing enough for their victory, keeps both of your enemies occupied and wasting resources fighting each
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Because Kimble was a famous pirate in the early/mid 90s (Romkids), who narced on BBS when he got caught carding. He then ran a bunch of investment scams, got busted in Germany and Hong Kong. Moved onto New Zealand after burning those bridges, ran a site that gave rewards and turned a blind eye to piracy of everything under the sun. No idea what his next venture is going to be, but the man is a pirate by reputation.
So what? You butthurt because he narc'd on you? Or did you invest in his investments? Because no one gives a fuck about that shit, at all. What is on the table is his Megaupload site, and the fact that without it going to trial, the USA managed to get him out of business and even copies of his data, which wasn't legally theirs to take. Not to mention so far that it appears that the RIAA and MIAA convinced politicians that they have close ties to (namely, they pay off) to go above the law in bring
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Each time a Dotcom story comes up we get exactly the same type of post from an AC, so he obviously was hit personally by the guy.
But the problem is he's obviously very biased against him, if you read what Dotcom was actually guilty of then much of it is not that big a deal. Where he was done for fraud for example he really did nothing different to what many investment organisations get away with every day, his problem is that he was a little guy with no government links to allow him to get away with it unli
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Why is there a seperate category for piracy at all? Piracy is an online rights issue. Copyright is a limitation on free speech.
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Copyright is a limitation on free speech.
Idiot.
Copyright is the right of the creator to his own works of art (words or otherwise). By definition, you own the copyright for your own words. Thus, your Free Speech is protected by, not limited by copyright.
Putting someone elses words through the printing press to distribute them is not Free Speech. Doing it with your own words is legal.
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Putting someone elses words through the printing press to distribute them is not Free Speech.
So when I say
that's not free speech?
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Since that work is long out of copyright, you are putting up a very obvious strawman there.
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That's not a strawman, that's an obvious counter example to your assertion. My point is that the words of others can be used as Free Speech. That the words came from someone else is not an important factor.
Now the question is how free speech becomes non-free speech by the simple grant by the government of monopoly powers to that speech, and if that grant of monopoly is consistent with our rights.
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Ok, I'll elaborate:
That quote alone means nothing. Only by adding some of your own words does it become a statement about your opinion, thoughts, whatever. Illustrating your point with quotes is perfectly fine, but parrotting other people does not create a meaningful utterance.
The point, as in all things, is balance. The world is not binary. Both your and my arguments are simplifications. I think we agree that posting a rant about the current government is Free Speech. I think we also agree that posting a v
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Copyright is a limitation on free speech.
Idiot.
Copyright is the right of the creator to his own works of art (words or otherwise). By definition, you own the copyright for your own words. Thus, your Free Speech is protected by, not limited by copyright.
Putting someone elses words through the printing press to distribute them is not Free Speech. Doing it with your own words is legal.
It's you that's the idiot here, if anyone.
Any form of expression is free speech. Just look up modern rulings on pornography for instance. There's no originality clause so repeating what others have said is equal to saying it yourself. So making a pornographic movie is clearly free speech, which means that copying it is also free speech. Copyright is censorship and a restriction on free speech, and thus actually a human rights violation.
How to protect the livelihood of people creating original content? - Wel
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Despite all that has been said on this particular topic, I wonder why this is news is classified with a skull and crossbones, not under YRO, and tagged as piracy.
Because stupid people think megaupload was just about piracy, the smart people understand it wasn't about piracy, though people use it to make money via piracy. And guess what? Those same people use other sites currently. So Megaupload wasn't a cause of piracy at all, it was just a vehicle that was used. Because if it was the cause, then piracy would of stopped when it went down, no?
New Zealand is a good place (Score:3, Funny)
Re:New Zealand is a good place (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you followed the story, his bust in NZ was NOT above board. The FBI coerced them into doing it, and taking many many shortcuts and liberties along the way, embarrassing the hell out of the NZ government and police. I'd say it's a safe bet they won't do that again. If he does get taken down again, it'll be much more carefully and LEGALLY done - and Kim I'm sure is taking close care to not step over that line (although he's mighty close to it).
Mega is different because all the content is client-side encrypted before being uploaded. Mega specifically has no access to the content or ability to filter it, and hence no responsibility for it. I'm sure they'll comply with takedown notices too. The liability is on the user, as it should be - otherwise the Cloud business model is already dead.
MadCow.
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and Kim I'm sure is taking close care to not step over that line (although he's mighty close to it).
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Kim was taken down many, many years back in Germany and in response sold out to law enforcement and worked for them as a snitch for a while.
Are you ready to bet your liberty on that not happening again? I know I will never touch any of his enterprises with a 10-foot pole, but in this case I'll stay away a lot further. It just smells "trap" way too much.
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This creates and interesting problem for a large cloud datastorage provider. Namely if everything if encrypted, compression will cease to be effective. Also it effectively eliminates the ability to run data deduplication on all the storage leading to far higher storage costs.
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It's a catch 22.
If you refuse to delete all copies, the feds can hang you.
if you delete all copies, your innocent users can hang you.
The feds knew damn well they were abusing a technical loophole to nail megaupload.
"Judges are not influenced by politics in New ..." (Score:2)
Re:"Judges...", BUT (Score:3)
If everything is encrypted, how can Mega.co.nz be anything but a storage container of unknown files?
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If they do know, for example because they are knowingly inviting copyrighted content, as the internal e-mails show they did for Megaupload.
Basically, the same way you can be convicted of murder even if you get rid of the weapon and the body. Circumstancial evidence.
Tom (822) (Score:2, Funny)
u must be new here
Governments can do whatever the hell they want (Score:5, Informative)
Back in 2003, I built the world's first DIY cruise missile in a garage here in New Zealand.
When the media found out, they approached the government for comment and the Prime MInister of the day (Helen Clark) admitted that in doing this, I had broken no laws.
Well when the US government found out what I'd been doing they were outraged and intense pressure was applied to the NZ government to shut down this low-cost-cruise-missile project.
But how could they do that? -- after all, the PM had admitted I'd broken no laws in doing so.
Well as we all (now) know, governments can do any damned thing they want and if they can't achieve their ends by fair means, they'll use foul ones.
As a result, they "Caponed" me and used the NZ equivalent of the IRS to bankrupt me by coming up with all manner of "assessed" tax liabilities and breaching an agreement I already had in place.
A local TV current affairs program did a piece on my plight:
Part 1 [youtube.com]
Part 2 [youtube.com]
and you can see from that, just how governments are able to sidestep or force the courts to do whatever they want -- when there's an agenda involved.
So Kim Dotcom ought to be very careful -- who knows what a savage dog will do when you back it into a corner?
I've written a book about this chapter (and others) of my life but suffice to say I have had some issues with publishers who don't want to get involved in a case where it's obvious that the rulebook gets tossed out the door in favor of covering asses at high levels.
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...
I've written a book about this chapter (and others) of my life but suffice to say I have had some issues with publishers who don't want to get involved in a case where it's obvious that the rulebook gets tossed out the door in favor of covering asses at high levels.
This is the Internet dude, self publish. Make a ebook and put it on amazon, they aren't that picky are they?
I bet the new Mega would be glad to publish that book for ya. Seriously, I bet if Kim knew, he'd be down to talk with you.
Re: Caponed := ``castrated'' (Score:2)
A capon is a rooster that has been castrated to improve the quality of its flesh for food [wikipedia.org] I just hope you meant just the castrated part, and not that they also sliced and diced you for a tastier meal afterwards, mate! ;)
.
Impressive home rocketry project. I'd like to read your book or book drafts. Do you have it on your web-site in HTML or PDF form? Can they use an injunction to stop you from publishing about your project and your experiences, or do they have strong "fr
Caponed != ``castrated'', but is = "Al Capone"d (Score:2)
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Yea, I seem to remember that. You were the guy making pipe engines, which were inefficient but interesting...
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Yeah... big ones [youtube.com] and smaller ones [youtube.com].
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Yea, I remember those. Was thinking of getting some when I was young, I may have even contacted you back then. They'd look awesome on my recumbent, but for safety's sake, I think I shouldn't :)
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I've written a book about this chapter (and others) of my life but suffice to say I have had some issues with publishers who don't want to get involved in a case where it's obvious that the rulebook gets tossed out the door in favor of covering asses at high levels.
You should look into self-publishing it online -- a growing number of professional mainstream authors and hobbyists (like retro-technology historians) have started taking that route for projects that couldn't get a major publisher's backing. If you put it up on Amazon or Smashwords for a reasonable fee and submit a Slashdot story about it, you'd probably also make a pretty tidy sum of money.
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New Zealand (Score:2)
Because that worked out so well for him last time.
It's not going to matter. (Score:2)
DNS is the weakest link of his service. If you can't find it, you can't use it. In fact, it's the weakest link of every website. Take out the DNS entry, and the site practically goes dark for the masses.
And while the NZ government might not raid his home anymore, they can easily take away any of the domain names he owns by "losing" his registration.
He might as well buy his own gTLD and see how long that'll last.
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ICANN would be forced to seize.
.co.nz? Boring... (Score:1)
Kim's Problem - Bad Marketing (Score:2)
See, Kim is just presenting it (Mega service) all wrong.
He should have told the US govt. he was simply offering "digital burqas" for user's data.
He might have even secured aid from the State Dept.
Or NASA, since now "Muslim outreach" is a major goal for NASA according to Charlie Bolden, NASA chief administrator.
To function/exist/succeed under repressive regimes, any product/service/etc must be presented from the viewpoint of how that product/service/etc glorifies and serves the ideological tenants and dogma