Inside the Secretive World of MegaUpload | Hacker News Reader

Inside the Secretive World of MegaUpload

owni.eu

49 pointsgluejar23 comments

> He made a name for himself infiltrating some the best protected computer systems in the world (including NASA’s)

funny. anybody who was part of the scene back then would tell you that NASA was far from the 'best protected' network. jpl.nasa.gov became a running joke.

I had multiple runins with Schmidt back then (many people did) - the guy was a poser and a script kiddie, all too happy to talk up other hacks as his own in the media.

but anyway, most people know Kim Schmidt is behind the Mega companies. nothing new here. He went from being rich to being broke again a few times in his life (including a pump and dump that he was charged for) and started fresh out in Asia with Megaupload.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if these celebrities were paid to be in the video. I wonder if anybody has thought of asking them.

Actually, it never even came into my mind to think that the celebrities were not paid to be in the video.

This is spot on. I didn't realize until now that the owner of MegaUpload was kimble. Unbelievable. He used to have all these intensive flash sites celebrating him, his businesses, his hacking etc. Everyone I knew considered him a joke and a con artist.

This is a pretty cool and well designed attack piece. I like the introduction of issues such as as "he bought the largest house in new zealand" coupled with the innuendo "while refusing to say where he got his riches", suggesting it is criminal activity and he must be a gangster. Gosh, I wonder who ordered this piece up.

Here's another "attack piece", by Kim himself: http://torrentfreak.com/from-rogue-to-vogue-megaupload-and-k...

I love the way he boasts about how unflattering his wikipedia article is.

Whenever I come across stories like this, I wonder if I'm doing startups wrong. The blogosphere is full of stories about being transparent, raising money from well-known angels and VC etc. but I wonder if there are 10 secretive companies making tens of millions for every one that makes it on TechCrunch.

There are many. Chances are you're focusing on startup ideas that appeal to "modern hipster".

Usually, white, middle-class, male, nerdy, tech savvy, 20-35, easily whipped into a frenzy.

The founders of these startups, being of the same demographic, have a high visual appeal to their prospective customer base. They're photogenic and in some ways, aspirational. Hence, they make popular blog posts possible. Giving them high marketability and value to online news organisations (your main source of news) who are also targeting this demographic.

For example, notice on kickstarter, who gets the most funding?

On the other hand, other profitable startup ideas that do not appeal to the demographic of the blogs and websites you visit are missed. When's the last time you visited a traditional forum? or any site other than your top 10 bookmarks and a bunch of links you got from them?

There is no real recipe for success.

Yes, boring, conservative companies with suits don't make TC.

They can be excruciatingly profitable however.

This is such a fascinating story. I mean I would just love to know how a company so secretive got all those celebrities to sing a its praises.

Money talks.

My guess is they did it the same way all the interviews for Borat were set up. Send in a few legit looking people in business suits with some good marketing speak and contracts, and it should be easy to get the celebs to say a line you wrote about a website they don't know for 10k.

Check out this video of the founder thanking his users: http://www.megavideo.com/?v=TKY5290L

What a big-dog!

He ate at least one Wurstenschnitzel too many.

He's only mega because so many people are happy. How cute!

When you access megaupload.com from Hong Kong, you will get

"This service is temporarily not available from your service area."

Isn't this for tax reasons? A lot of tax paradises do not allow you to offer your services locally.. Correct me if I'm wrong.

True for International Business Corporations (IBCs) and free trade zones in many places.

However, in Hong Kong you just pay local taxes on local income (8% I believe), and no taxes on overseas income (although if you're a US citizen it becomes a lot more complex, with Controlled Foreign Corporation rules, etc.).

It's much more likely that he doesn't want to face local legal issues in Hong Kong. i.e. "never sell no crack where you rest at, I don't care if they want an ounce, tell em: bounce".

50 million visits would make up 4 percent of the Net? That seems high.

They could be talking as a percentage of accessible data? Although, that seems like a difficult thing to calculate.

EDIT: Seems like a few people have tried, so they could just take those numbers. For example:

"5 billion gigabytes" - WiseGeek 2011 - http://www.wisegeek.com/how-big-is-the-internet.htm

According to Megaupload, they store over 100 petabytes of data. Which equals 102m GB - http://megaupload.com/?c=faq

That would put them at roughly 2%.

EDIT 2: Alternatively, google has them at about 1.8% reach - https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile#siteD...

when you are talking about total internet traffic, 2% reach with a page that weighs 100KB is very different to having a 0.1% reach of people downloading pirated movies

at peak of popularity, photobucket would burst to high-single-digits of all bandwidth on the web. I can believe that megaupload would also burst to low-to-mid single digits considering just how much of the pirate tube sites and warez sites point to megaupoad now.

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