Kim Dotcom Apparently Spied On For Longer Than Admitted

another random user writes "Kim Dotcom's internet connection was being diverted inside New Zealand weeks before the Government Communications Security Bureau says it started spying on him. The New Zealand Herald has obtained details showing Telecom engineers and staff at its technology services company Gen-I were investigating irregularities with his internet connection in November. The revelation has raised suspicion that Mr Dotcom was victim to earlier spying than the GCSB has admitted. It has brought fresh calls for an inquiry amid claims of the spy agency's role in the international 'Five Eyes' Echelon Network."

Comments

Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

If the latency figures in the article are accurate then the traffic wasn't staying in the country at all. You can get from one end of the country to the other in 35ms round trip, so even the original 30ms seems rubbish unless the circuit was DSL. The way they were making out it was a high end connection that doesn't seem likely. 180ms will easily get you too Australia and all going well will get you to San Jose from New Zealand.

Re:Latency seems too high

[girlintraining]

If the latency figures in the article are accurate then the traffic wasn't staying in the country at all. You can get from one end of the country to the other in 35ms round trip, so even the original 30ms seems rubbish unless the circuit was DSL. The way they were making out it was a high end connection that doesn't seem likely. 180ms will easily get you too Australia and all going well will get you to San Jose from New Zealand.

Geographical separation only has a loose relation to wire length. You say 180ms will get from San Jose to New Zealand, but in the evenings, my cablemodem regularly hits 300ms times just to reach google. Oversubscription and massive buffering on a shared line are to blame; Not geographical or line distance.

We need to know more about the lines before we can say what the latency values mean, if they mean anything at all. I'm also not at all convinced that a wiretap would result in any latency: Hanging a packet sniffer off of a switch doesn't make the switch run slower in almost any scenario I can think of. Wiretapping is supposed to be something that doesn't broadcast to the target "Smile, you're on hidden camera!" If an elementary network tool can reveal a wiretap, somebody's doing something wrong. Very wrong.

Re:Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

If I recall correctly ( cant remember where I read it ) Mr Dotcom had fibre from his place at Coatesville to sky tower. That is something in the order of 35km, which should be like 1 or 2ms. You would have to have a very home user grade circuit like cable or dsl to get exactly 30ms across Auckland.

Re:crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone remind me, again what his crime was?
Wasn't he just running a cloud backup service, same as countless nonarrested others?

He was going to launch the Megabox service. Thus, his crime was the most serious crime any citizen of the United States of Earth can commit: Felony interference with an outdated business model. It's still rather surprising that the MPAAocrat administration didn't send over a predator drone or two to level his house and be done with it.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

The authorities should have to prove their innocence, or they should lose their authority.

Prove that you are not a serial killer. Prove you do not rape women. Prove you do not rob banks. A negative is almost impossible to prove. The government has the same "assumption of innocence" as a person. One needs to prove that something happens not prove that something didn't.

Re:crime?

[nurb432]

His crime was pissing off the industry.

NZ gives millions to the US movie industry

[NewtonsLaw]

The NZ Prime Minister John Key is *so* in-bed with the US movie industry that it is not funny.

Right now, he's in the USA schmoozing with the members of the MPAA and offering them hundreds of millions of (taxpayer) dollars in inducements to come film their products here.

Meanwhile... the same government ignores pleas from the science and technology sectors here to give them even a small break with respect to their R&D activities. Even when they do have a brain-fart and decide to invest taxpayers' money in some research or development activity they totally screw up and blow almost $1m on a stupid pie-in-the-sky delusion like the Martin Jetpack.

No, it seems that the government is more interested in selling-out (at all levels) to the USA than in helping to actually create some really valuable intellectual property that would be *owned* by NZers.

Kim Dotcom can't win -- because he's fighting the people who make (and break with impunity) the rules.

How long before the citizens of the world wake up to the way in which their governments are colluding with certain big business interests to disadvantage the majority of people?

Surely, in this age of technology, we can do more than simply voice our disgust on forums like this?

What is the next step?