Slashdot Mirror
Kim Dotcom Outs Mega Teaser Site, Finalizes Domain Name
hypnosec writes "Kim Dotcom has let out more information about the launch of Megaupload's successor Mega, which he claims will be 'bigger, better, faster, stronger, [and] safer.' Mega is currently looking for partners willing to provide servers, support and connectivity to become 'Mega Storage Nodes.' The prime requirement, according to Dotcom, is that the servers should be located outside the U.S. and that the companies should also be based outside of the U.S. For this reason, Dotcom has decided that the new service will be launching with 'Me.ga' domain name."
According the the article I read in my dead-tree Wired issue, plus speculation, the new service is going to be fully encrypted, forcing all users to encrypt their uploads so that the upload service itself cannot see what the content on its severs is, and so they have total plausible deniability, with the added bonus that the government also can't find clear-text data on their servers to incriminate them with.
This might also allow you and your trusted friends to upload anything you want, and megaupload/your ISP/the government cannot then bust you for copyright infringement or whatever, for the practical reason that they don't know what the data is. Of course this is possible now with current technology, but a cloud storage service with a good user interface with this feature 'built-in' and mandatory might be what it takes to get ordinary people to encrypt their content. Imagine Dropbox with mandatory encryption. True cypherpunks would argue that everything should have always been like this anyway.
Of course, Big Content doesn't roll over for such technicalities so I expect this to simply spawn more anti-cryptography laws.