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Mega Finds New Home, Dotcom Says
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."
Who sets the laws in the first place and who changes laws? (Don't say "the people" you'll be modded down as mental.)
Mega CONZ... It's a TRAP! err, a Con!
Seems like it is a bit belated.
Domain sounds like Mega Cons when read aloud.
Not a shock, or anything. ;)
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.
"..reportedly launching on January 20, 2012."
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.
Death looks every man in the face. All any man can do is look back and smile. - Marcus Aurelius
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.
Cash
Rules
Everything
Around
Me.ga
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.
She blinded me with science, she tricked me with technology. ~ Thomas Dolby
New Zealand is a good place to start new business after your business is destroyed by your arrest which occurred on some Pacific country. Could you remind me in which country you were arrested, Kim?
no no no.. its called "The Golden Rule"
he who has the gold makes the rules
They are, however, influenced by copyright law, I am sure.
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
next thing you know its going to be a full fledged vegas convention with all kinds of weirdo's dressed in costume!
The politicians who receive the most votes.
That means "the people," through their delegates.
If everything is encrypted, how can Mega.co.nz be anything but a storage container of unknown files?
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 personal persuasion. A great many of those individuals naturally (but not stupidly) concentrate on one overriding issue each, and not the same issue as the next guy.
The ridiculously anthropomorphic concept of "the decision of the voters" is nonsensical. There are one hundred million disparate decisions, based on widely varying criteria, reasoning processes, and emotions. These separate decisions then combine mathematically to result in an incoherent selection of winners across the spectrum of offices being contested. The resulting selection rarely pleases a very large percentage of voters, as an inherent result of the process.
A modest proposal. In industry we found it necessary to develop a balance to the concentrated power of large employers by having the employees band together in unions to synthesize concentrations of power of their own. 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? What if individual voters could sign up to hand over their voting proxies to these agents? It would be optional, just as proxies in the investment world are optional. It gets a bit messy, because you would need different systems of agents at the national, state, and local levels, but that does not really make it very difficult to administer.
These various agents would each publish their own agenda, argue their cases, and solicit their own supporters. They would of course be required to publish their voting histories, so prospective supporters could evaluate their integrity. The gain is that they would not have the massive incentive to lie, cheat, and game the system like candidates do now; and they would be more resistant to being lied to, cheated, and games by the candidates.
OK, the decision making in the government is already representative. Are we sure the decision making in the elective process would not benefit from also being made representative?
I'm sure there are counter arguments, aspects I have missed, and fine tuning required. Any takers?
u must be new here
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
Part 2
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.
CREAM get the money, dolla dolla bill ya'll!
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.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
A capon is a rooster that has been castrated to improve the quality of its flesh for food 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 "freedom of speech" laws in NZ?
And as for KimDotCom, you already know what NZ would do: bow to the wishes of the MPAA/RIAA speaking through the government of the USA's DOJ and military branches as the communiqu(e-accented)s via the USA embassy in NZ show the complicity of the US govt in the raid on KimDotCom.
Because that worked out so well for him last time.
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.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Not really that memorable. He should register for a Cook Island's business domain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ck
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 of the regime and the regime's leaders. A product/service/etc that openly mocks the regime and/or the leaders and ideological/legal tenants and dogma, especially by showing how ridiculous, impractical, and harmful they are, will be met by efforts to suppress and eliminate it and those behind it that will not be limited on the regime's behalf to any imagined or pretended "limits" on it's powers written on some old piece of parchment, because there will be no consequences as the citizens have become domesticated, pacified/controlled by a militarized police force and domestic intelligence/covert ops, and indoctrinated from kindergarten up.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Okay, yeah, I see it. But Capone actually broke laws but they couldn't find the evidence for it, so they got him on the tax charges. NZman was specifically told he did not/was not breaking any laws. But yeah, he probably meant Al Capone.
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.
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 purpose, to which they will be held to account, is to consider real ISSUES.
There may be real objections to the proposal, but an objection founded on "we already have a structure in place to accomplish this" is not one that has any basis. It sounded to me like "it's called a political party" was claiming this. At heart I see parties as the enemy of a good and fair selection and governing process. However ...
I do like your Liquid Democracy pointer. Sounds like it is quite similar in principle to the proposal, but at a different level in the process. Maybe more practical to implement. It would be great to harness parties for good.
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 of each other. In the US each party spends most of its time tearing down the other, and very little time propounding specifically what its own agenda is.