Mega

The baby brother of Megaupload is born:

[link removed]

Watched a statement on twitter from Kim saying that the service already had 100.000 users in the first hour

I’d imagine we’re going to have to tread carefully in this topic.

So the site got some 250,000 registrations within the first couple of hours, and is already reported to be over 500,000 members. It’s apparently all totally encrypted, but they keep a record of essentially everything you do (communication logs, traffic data, site useage, any personal data, IP addresses…). Although, you do get a 50GB storage limit, and 500GB for just $9.99 a month, which is some pretty good value for money!

What I find strange, is that although It’s encrypted; the site will delete your file if it finds a user that has uploaded an identical file (you will still be able to access it). I’m not sure how that works with the ‘everything is encrypted, oh but we can still read your files and determine if it is the same as someone elses’ front. But, I’m sure someone could explain that.

Also, you have remember that this is a craetion of Kim Dotcom (The same guy who doesn’t really care about anything other than benefitting himself; used to steal credit cards; work with authorities; claimed to hack a bank to transfer money to another organisation illegally.. etc). I think I’ll wait a while to see how everyone gets on with it.

AgentVIP said

What I find strange, is that although It’s encrypted; the site will delete your file if it finds a user that has uploaded an identical file (you will still be able to access it). I’m not sure how that works with the ‘everything is encrypted, oh but we can still read your files and determine if it is the same as someone elses’ front. But, I’m sure someone could explain that.

If you encrypt the same thing twice they will match, that’s how you do secure password checks,

Encrypt “password” to “5baa61e4c9b93f3f0682250b6cf8331b7ee68fd8” and search the database for “5baa61e4c9b93f3f0682250b6cf8331b7ee68fd8”

BenSheppard said

AgentVIP said

What I find strange, is that although It’s encrypted; the site will delete your file if it finds a user that has uploaded an identical file (you will still be able to access it). I’m not sure how that works with the ‘everything is encrypted, oh but we can still read your files and determine if it is the same as someone elses’ front. But, I’m sure someone could explain that.

If you encrypt the same thing twice they will match, that’s how you do secure password checks,

Encrypt “password” to “5baa61e4c9b93f3f0682250b6cf8331b7ee68fd8” and search the database for “5baa61e4c9b93f3f0682250b6cf8331b7ee68fd8”

Except everyone has a unique encryption key that’s unique to their account (i think), therefore that wouldn’t be possible as the two hashes wouldn’t match.

designedbydash said
Except everyone has a unique encryption key that’s unique to their account (i think), therefore that wouldn’t be possible as the two hashes wouldn’t match.

This. And according to their TOS, the files are encrypted client side; meaning two identical files would have two different hashes due to the client key.

EDIT: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5084346

AgentVIP said

designedbydash said
Except everyone has a unique encryption key that’s unique to their account (i think), therefore that wouldn’t be possible as the two hashes wouldn’t match.

This. And according to their TOS, the files are encrypted client side; meaning two identical files would have two different hashes due to the client key.

Oh. Ignore me then

AgentVIP said
... the site will delete your file if it finds a user that has uploaded an identical file..

Any official on this? This would prevent some illegal distribution of files if I’m the first who upload my files there, or not?

revaxarts said

AgentVIP said
... the site will delete your file if it finds a user that has uploaded an identical file..

Any official on this? This would prevent some illegal distribution of files if I’m the first who upload my files there, or not?

They are encrypted first on the client side with a key that is unique to the uploader, so Mega will have no idea if there is identical files on their servers.

revaxarts said

AgentVIP said
... the site will delete your file if it finds a user that has uploaded an identical file..

Any official on this? This would prevent some illegal distribution of files if I’m the first who upload my files there, or not?

If the people who distrubute your material illegally just zip it inside another zip won’t that just be read as a different file?