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Data Storage Technology

Kim Dotcom Reveals Mega Will Offer 50GB of Free Storage 203

An anonymous reader writes "Kim Dotcom on Thursday used Twitter to reveal some interesting new tidbits in regards to his upcoming Mega service, which will be hosted at the New Zealand-based domain Mega.co.nz. Two days before the service is to go live, Doctom says he plans to offer 50GB of free storage to all members and is also working on bringing over users' Megaupload files and data, but has so far run into legal issues." To say that Kim Dotcom has "run into legal issues" is like saying that Julian Assange is having a sleepover at the Ecuadorian embassy.
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Kim Dotcom Reveals Mega Will Offer 50GB of Free Storage

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  • Your Porn (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17, 2013 @02:48PM (#42618901)

    Hangin out in Middle Earth for a few months.

    Tricksy Hobbitses

  • by kawabago ( 551139 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @02:51PM (#42618929)
    Will get lopped off this time! Unfortunately there is clearly one word that defines the Obama administration, vindictive! And it isn't pretty!
    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by geek ( 5680 )

      Some how it will be Bush's fault.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Anyone who still supports Obama is a full fledged authoritarian.

      • by Qzukk ( 229616 )

        Anyone who still supports Obama is a full fledged authoritarian.

        There isn't anyone else that agrees 100% with me on 100% of policies, therefore nobody is capable of representing me other than myself. Viva le direct democracy!

    • What worries me more, is what brain is controlling that legal hand . . . ? It doesn't seem to be the US government at all. It's more like the US Justice Department was acting like private cops working for Hollywood.

      The same for the Aaron Swartz case. Who was driving that prosecution . . . ?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Another Kim Dotcom story. It looks like Kim Dotcom is to Slashdot like Kim Kardashian is to People magazine.

  • Nothing good about that limit, I think it's actually quite stingy compared to the competition. Additionally, If there was a limit on the old MU, I never hit it... and I had a lot more than 50GB in there.

    • by Cito ( 1725214 )

      There really is no true "limit"

      Just go here: http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html [10minutemail.com]

      create a "10 minute email account"

      register multiple mega accounts and win :P

      hell I had 8 different megaupload accounts and all premium due to running their "ad supported app" on an old linux box inside a virtual machine of winxp :P

      on my seed box I use RuTorrent web front end, and Rapidleech web program, once a torrent finished it auto copied to the rapidleech upload folder then I'd click a drop down box megaupload/2s

    • by HJED ( 1304957 )
      Actually from someone who has been researching the topic, the only free service that comes close to that amount of data is Microsoft's Skydrive.
  • "Doctom says .."

    Come on! Not even 100 words in the summary, the name of this (by now) VERY well known dude appears exactly 3 times, and you can't even spell that right? Or at least make the same name appears each instance?

    What does /. pay these editors for??? I mean, it's not like they are needed to select what stories to run on the frontpage (see firehose).

    • Peanuts and fame, and karma?

    • "Doctom says .."

      Come on! Not even 100 words in the summary, the name of this (by now) VERY well known dude appears exactly 3 times, and you can't even spell that right? Or at least make the same name appears each instance?

      What does /. pay these editors for??? I mean, it's not like they are needed to select what stories to run on the frontpage (see firehose).

      C'mon, give /. editors a break Their job is tough and unforgiving.

      Why, in the process of preparing this very story, the editor stumbled, ripped their underwear, and severely stubbed their vagina!

      How well do YOU spell with a stubbed vagina? :P

      (Just joking. No offense meant towards you, Alwin.)

      Strat

  • by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @03:10PM (#42619109) Homepage

    Doctom says he plans to offer 50GB of free storage to all members...but has so far run into legal issues."

    I'm planning to woo Kaley Cuoco and elope to Tahiti with her, but have so far run into reality issues. Where's my free press?

  • by macbeth66 ( 204889 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @03:18PM (#42619203)

    I wish these guys weren't so creepy. I find it so hard to support them when they make my skin crawl.

    At least there wasn't a reference to McAfee. Although, it appears that of the three, he is the least creepy.

    • by Gerafin ( 1408009 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @03:55PM (#42619613)
      Imagine McAfee and Dotcome sitting in a hot tub together, discussing their wild techno fantasies. You're welcome.
    • Re:really creepy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @04:10PM (#42619757) Journal

      I wish these guys weren't so creepy. I find it so hard to support them when they make my skin crawl.

      Who, the US DOJ? They make my skin crawl too.

    • The IT field does suffer from a lack of diversity due to the entrenched discrimination against debonair gentlemen and handsome athletes.
    • by Tom ( 822 )

      I find it so hard to support them when they make my skin crawl.

      Then don't. Why do you think you need to support them? Just because it's the standard /. view?

      Kim is a career criminal and a scum. That some of his enemies are also yours doesn't mean he is your friend. On the contrary, he and his illegal, commercial copyright violations are the exact kinds of things that Hollywood wants and needs to lobby for more and harsher laws, and the last thing those of us interested in a balanced and reasonable copyright need.

  • by Sparticus789 ( 2625955 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @03:20PM (#42619227) Journal

    From the Embassy:
    Assange: this sleepover is amazing. Want to play truth or dare?
    Ecuadorian Ambassador: No, Julian, can we just go to sleep?
    Assange: How about we do some prank calls? I got a shit list we can call.
    EA: Can we add Amnesty International and the EFF on there?
    Assange: Sure, as long as we can call Obama
    EA: Why not? I got a red phone over there. ::sound of teenage girls chuckling::

  • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @03:30PM (#42619349) Homepage Journal

    The site isn't live yet, but the information pages are *really* interesting.

    1) Distributed storage?

    Mega is inviting people to be a mega storage node. Allocate some storage and bandwidth on your system, and Mega will store files there.

    This would imply (to me, at least) that the site will use distributed storage. If I'm right, that means it will be nigh impossible for any authority to take the data offline in a single action. All Kim needs is a list associating peoples' files with where they are physically stored, and it won't matter to *the users* if the site gets taken down - he can just publish the list and everyone can get their files from the cloud storage nodes directly. (I'm probably overlooking a more elegant solution, such as unpublicized backup domains which can be announced as alternate portals if the main site gets taken down.)

    Also - They propose to *pay you* for being a mega storage node. That won't be popular, no sirreee...

    2) Published API?

    They propose to publish a comprehensive API and software dev kit. In their words: "We hope to see a thriving ecosystem of crypto-enabled third-party client apps emerge."

    We don't need to trust Kim for security. Open source applications will sprout like weeds, and you can choose from whichever publisher you trust. (The Firefox plugin from Mozilla perhaps, or the version put out by the Apache foundation...)

    2) Encryption == No liability?

    In their words: "You hold the keys to what you store in the cloud, not us."

    This neatly avoids any liability on their part for hosting content, and at the same time protects everyone's online content from random web snooping by the likes of CIA, NSA, and various repressive regimes. Including Chinese hackers.

    IANAL, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that attaching liability to this type of storage would require new laws, and a sea shift in the way liability is determined. Any such change would be unworkable, since it would also encompass broad swatches of the existing internet.

    3) Better functionality

    The site mentions improvements in functionality, such as having servers near the customer for speed (due to the distributed nature of storage), complete disk functionality, and so on.

    ====================

    I have to say, this *really does* look like it will change the world, and will be the future made manifest.

    Go check out Mega.co.nz and see for yourself - it's an interesting read.

    (Oh, and if you would like to help erode the influence of the media conglomerates (RIAA, MPAA, &c), getting a free account and storing your legally owned files would be a drop in the bucket towards that end.)

    • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @03:47PM (#42619515) Homepage Journal

      The page under "Server requirements" has this interesting tidbit:

      "Unfortunately, we can't work with hosting companies based in the United States. Safe harbour for service providers via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been undermined by the Department of Justice with its novel criminal prosecution of Megaupload. It is not safe for cloud storage sites or any business allowing user-generated content to be hosted on servers in the United States or on domains like .com / .net. The US government is frequently seizing domains without offering service providers a hearing or due process."

      Get out the popcorn, this should be fun to watch!

      (And a P.S. for web designers: mega.co.nz is a model of website design efficiency. Easy to read, short and to-the-point, graphics and layout which improve the presentation, and fast loading.)

      • (And a P.S. for web designers: mega.co.nz is a model of website design efficiency. Easy to read, short and to-the-point, graphics and layout which improve the presentation, and fast loading.)

        As if the web designers are the arbiter of what the client (hopefully) pays for. I do what my clients want [theoatmeal.com].

      • > mega.co.nz is a model of website design efficiency A navigation bar that slides away from under your cursor? Thanks but no thanks, please.
    • I thought you meant they would pay me just for being a peer, but from the site:

      == At least 20 TB of disk space, quality RAID controller, at least 4 GB of RAM, at least 1 Gbps uplink (2 Gbps preferred), Linux ==

      But you are correct sir, it is an interesting concept and I would gladly be a paying customer for this service.

    • by randallman ( 605329 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @05:16PM (#42620377)

      Disclaimer 1 - This is my system
      Disclaimer 2 - The System (ScatterBytes.net) is under heavy development and not currently online. I maybe shouldn't be advertising this on Slashdot, but I would like to get some feedback and if you are interested in adding a storage node or using a client, please respond here or through the website,

      https://www.scatterbytes.net/ [scatterbytes.net]

      I currently only want people comfortable with a Linux and a CLI and with the stomach to host data on a system in beta.

      You get paid to be a storage node and other than being generally always on, it doesn't matter what type of equipment you use because the system is highly redundant and node outages are expected. Payments are handled through Paypal - both sending and receiving. I'm working on a guide to use a Raspberry Pi as a storage node so that initial costs and power usage will be minimal. The Pi would also double as media/file storage for a local network.

      As a client you choose how much redundancy you want. Anywhere from 2 to 20 (or more) mirrors for your data. You can also add parity. After encrypting and splitting a file, the client uploads the pieces to different storage nodes (assigned by a control node), which transfer those pieces to other storage nodes for replication. ALL communication is encrypted and nodes are verified using X.509 certificates signed by a scatterbytes.net CA. Files are encrypted by the client and only the client has the key so ONLY the client can read the data.

      • There's no way I would consider pooling considerable disk space, bandwidth usage, and number crunching time from my machines enough to get paid if it means I must give out all my info to the online US payment processing corporation that is an essential part of the status quo of the moneyed banking elite that took Megaupload down in the first place. You would be a fool for not learning from the mistakes that have already been made: in 2013 you are still going to base your financial payments between your com
        • You make some good points. I value my privacy and others' so I do want to offer payment options that respect privacy. I've done some initial study on bitcoin including trading for currency as that would be essential. I would appreciate any suggestions on implementation using bitcoin.

      • by caluml ( 551744 )
        Ambiguous pricing:

        From the main page: 1.95c GB-Mo *
        From the stats page: Storage Rates (USD) per GB * 30 Days Storage Charge (Client Node) 1.95c

        Note the "USD" mentioned.

        Make your mind up, and make it obvious. Either it's $1.95, or it's $0.0195. Personally, I wouldn't bother with the cents. At first, I thought, wow, $0.0195 per GB/month - that's really good.

        This is like the Verizon maths problem [blogspot.com] all over again.
        • It is 1.95 cents. That is a cent sign and there is no dollar sign. I will try to make it less confusing.

    • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      If I'm right, that means it will be nigh impossible for any authority to take the data offline in a single action. All Kim needs is a list associating peoples' files with where they are physically stored, and it won't matter to *the users* if the site gets taken down - he can just publish the list and everyone can get their files from the cloud storage nodes directly.

      Yes, yes, a joy indeed. Of course it would expose storage-holders to Dotcom-treatment (men in black helicopter in, take your servers and arrest you, even if though charges won't stick a year or two later).

      I look forward to signing up for the Dotcom experience by becoming one of the storage nodes.

    • Uh, doesn't everything you describe pretty much describe Bittorrent?  Gnutella?  etc.
  • by bugnuts ( 94678 ) on Thursday January 17, 2013 @03:47PM (#42619519) Journal

    Sounds a lot like mega cons. You'd think he could have done better.

    • Except New Zealand is the only country fighting for Kim Dotcom against US extradiction. Hence .co.nz. It was going to be Me.ga but (as posted here too) that domain was revoked the moment he announced it.

    • I donno. I have never heard anyone getting conned by someone named cons/conz.

  • megaconz ... Intentional or not... seems accurate enough.
    • megaconz ... Intentional or not... seems accurate enough.

      Thanks! That's a handy mnemonic for remembering the site name...

  • Do you get 500GB of storage if it's not pirated? For pirated content, they can usually merge duplicates with the other copies of the same pirated content. If it's unique content, they really have to store it.

    Will they support Mecurial or some other revision control system? I'd like to store Autodesk Inventor engineering design files for my personal projects, which are many gigabytes of binary files if you keep all the revisions. 500GB on Dropbox is $500 per year, and Github gets upset if you store big

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