Mega (website)

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This article is about the file hosting service. For the website's predecessor, see Megaupload. For other uses, see Mega (disambiguation).
Mega, Ltd.

The Privacy Company
Type Limited
Headquarters Auckland, New Zealand
Founder(s) Kim Dotcom
Key people Kim Dotcom
Mathias Ortmann
Bram van der Kolk
Finn Batato
Tony Lentino
Vikram Kumar
Services Online file hosting
Owner Instra Corporation
MD Corporate Trustee, Limited
Website www.mega.co.nz
Alexa rank Increase 708 (January 2014)[1]
Registration Not required but restrictions do apply.
Users Over 5.5 million [2]
Available in Multilingual (49 languages)
Launched 19 January 2013 (2013-01-19)

Mega, Ltd. (branded as MEGA) is a cloud storage and file hosting service. Successor to Megaupload, its most notable feature is that all files are encrypted locally via JavaScript before they are uploaded. The website was launched on 19 January 2013 by Kim Dotcom, to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the seizure of Megaupload.[3] To promote his new website, Kim Dotcom hired ice cream chef Gianpaolo Grazioli to create a mega flavour in an extravaganza for his followers.[4] After Gabon denied the new company domain name me.ga,[5] Kim Dotcom announced it would instead be registered in his home country of New Zealand under the domain name mega.co.nz.[6]

History

Kim Dotcom's first file-hosting site Megaupload was seized and shut down on 19 January 2012 by the United States Department of Justice, which began criminal cases against its owners. Mega launched on 19 January 2013 - a year after Dotcom's original site was shut down. Kim Dotcom reported on Twitter getting over 100,000 registered within the first hour, speculating that this may make Mega the fastest-growing startup in history.[7] Kim Dotcom also reported on Twitter, that the site was extremely busy, and received thousands of user registrations per minute at the time of the tweet.[8] Kim later reported Mega having more than 1 million registered users, and 60 uploads completed every second.[9] Three days later that number was updated to 500 uploads completed every second.[10] On 7 February 2013, it was announced that the former Chief Executive of InternetNZ, Vikram Kumar, would step in as the new CEO of Mega. Lentino would instead maintain a seat as a director with Mega, and continue to provide his entrepreneurial spirit and skills to the enterprise, he said.[11]

Early users of the site experienced various issues, including slow-to-nonexistent upload speeds and problems logging in.[12] The service improved slightly over the next three days, but remained insufficient for large volumes of uploads. Others said there appeared to be no way to close an account in case it got compromised.[13]

Technology commentators blamed the poor performance on the site's popularity, noting it was ranked in the top 150 websites in the world in the first few days of its existence, subsequently dropping a few thousand places.[14]

On 4 July 2013 the official Mega Android application was released on the Google Play marketplace.[15] Four days later, on 8 July 2013 the Mega software development kit (SDK) and affiliate program was released.

On 4 September 2013, Kim Dotcom stepped down as Director of Mega.[16] In a later interview with the Washington Post on 7 September, Kim Dotcom announced Mega was getting 20,000 signups for the service every day.[17] Mega is currently hosting more than 500 million files,[18] and 3 million more are added every day. Furthermore, Mega receives about 100 DMCA takedowns per day.[19]

On 26 November 2013 the official Mega iOS application was released on the App Store marketplace.[20]

On 20 January 2014 the official Mega Sync application was released for Windows [21]

Data encryption

The Mega.co.nz HTML5 file manager.

Dotcom has said that data on the Mega service will be encrypted client-side using an advanced AES algorithm. Since Mega does not know the encryption keys to uploaded files, they cannot decrypt and view the content. Therefore, they cannot be responsible for the contents of uploaded files.[22] Dotcom stated that encrypting files allows them to work with a larger number of data hosting companies around the world, decreasing the likelihood of a Megaupload-style seizure of servers by one government. He mentioned in an interview with Ars Technica that "Each file will be kept with at least two different hosters, [in] at least two different locations," and "That’s a great added benefit for us because you can work with the smallest, most unreliable [hosting] companies. It doesn’t matter because they can’t do anything with that data."[23]

In the first few weeks after the Mega launch, various security problems were found that researchers said an attacker could use to gain access to a logged-in user's files.[24][25][26] In response, Mega started a vulnerability reward program which offers a reward of up to €10,000 for reporting security problems to Mega.[27]

The Mega team indicated that some companies, such as film studios, will have direct access to remove files if they discover the encryption keys online and determine that the content infringes their copyright. Dotcom added that if such companies want to use that tool they would have to agree, prior to receiving access, not to sue Mega or hold the site accountable for the actions of its users.[28]

Data allowances

  • Free account users are provided with one option:
    • 50 GB of storage space (no artificial limits are imposed, but in case of traffic congestion the speed is adjusted to a lower value until the servers are no longer overwhelmed)[29]
  • Paid account users are provided with three tiers of options:[30]
    • 500 GB storage (1 TB bandwidth per month)
    • 2 TB storage (4 TB bandwidth per month)
    • 4 TB storage (8 TB bandwidth per month)

API

Mega has released some documentation of its API so developers can write their own applications.[31]

According to Mega, in the near future they will provide reference client libraries/SDKs for various programming languages. For now, their JavaScript site code is the only official sample code available, although some programmers have developed samples of the Mega API in Python, PHP,[32] and C#,[33] and some applications have started to appear, including features like online video[34] and file synchronization.[35]

Limitations

According to Mega, the site "works with all major current browsers", but there can be some inconveniences to using browsers other than Google Chrome or Firefox. For example, with Internet Explorer 10, Mega has a "memory leak in the Blob saving functionality, [you] have to close and reopen the Mega tab every couple of hundred megabytes of inbound file transfer".[36]

Languages

Mega is available in the following 49 languages:[37]

  • Afrikaans (Afrikaans)
  • Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia)
  • Malaysian (Bahasa Malaysia)
  • Bosnian (Bosanski)
  • Breton (Breton)
  • Catalan (Català)
  • Czech (Čeština)
  • Welsh (Cymraeg)
  • Danish (Dansk)
  • German (Deutsch)
  • Estonian (Eesti)
  • English (English)
  • Spanish (Español)
  • Basque (Euskara)
  • French (Français)
  • Galician (Galego)
  • Croatian (Hrvatski)
  • Italian (Italiano)
  • Latvian (Latviešu)
  • Lithuanian (Lietuvos)
  • Hungarian (Magyar)
  • Dutch (Nederlands)
  • Norwegian (Norsk)
  • Polish (Polski)
  • Portuguese (Português)
  • Brazilian Portuguese (Português Brasil)
  • Russian (Pусский)
  • Romanian (Română)
  • Albanian (Shqipe)
  • Slovenian (Slovenščina)
  • Slovak (Slovenský)
  • Finnish (Suomi)
  • Swedish (Svenska)
  • Tagalog (Tagalog)
  • Turkish (Türkçe)
  • Bulgarian (български)
  • Macedonian (македонски)
  • Serbian (српски)
  • Ukrainian (Українська)
  • Georgian (ქართული)
  • Hebrew (עברית)
  • Arabic (العربية)
  • Farsi (فارسی)
  • Hindi (हिंदी)
  • Thai (ภาษาไทย)
  • Korean (한국어)
  • Traditional Chinese (中文繁體)
  • Japanese (日本語)
  • Chinese (简体中文)

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Mega.co.nz Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 4 January 2014. 
  2. ↑ "End-to-end encryption, code security & JavaScript cryptography". 12 November 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2013. 
  3. ↑ "Elaborate claims about new Dotcom site". 3 News NZ. 1 November 2012. Retrieved 1 November 2012. 
  4. ↑ "Kim Dotcom's delicious PR". 19 January 2013. 
  5. ↑ "Gabon suspends Kim Dotcom's me.ga domain". 3 News NZ. 7 November 2012. Retrieved 7 November 2012. 
  6. ↑ "Dotcom goes for NZ web address". 3 News NZ. 13 November 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2012. 
  7. ↑ Dotcom, Kim (19 January 2013). "Kim Dotcom's tweet: 100,000 registered users in less than 1 hour. Fastest growing startup in Internet history? #Mega". Retrieved 19 January 2013. 
  8. ↑ Dotcom, Kim (19 January 2013). "Site is extremely busy. Currently thousands of user registrations PER MINUTE". Twitter. Retrieved 19 January 2013. 
  9. ↑ Dotcom, Kim (22 January 2013). "60 uploads complete every second!". Twitter. Retrieved 22 January 2013. 
  10. ↑ Dotcom, Kim (25 January 2013). "When 500 uploads complete "every second" you know you created something powerful.". Twitter. Retrieved 14 June 2013. 
  11. ↑ Admin (7 February 2013). "Mega Limited appoints new CEO". Retrieved 7 February 2013. 
  12. ↑ Satherley, Dan (22 January 2013). "Dotcom apologises to Mega users". 3 News NZ. Retrieved 22 January 2013. 
  13. ↑ Boone, Jeb (23 January 2013). "Concerns raised over Mega site security". 3 News NZ. Retrieved 23 January 2013. 
  14. ↑ 3 News online staff (28 January 2013). "Mega: service improves as visitors drop off". 3 News NZ. Retrieved 28 January 2013. 
  15. ↑ https://mega.co.nz/#blog_15
  16. ↑ CEOWorld magazine (4 September 2013). "Kim Dotcom Has Stepped Down As Director Of Mega File-Storage Startup". Retrieved 4 September 2013. 
  17. ↑ Kim Dotcom is still wanted by the FBI. But that isn’t slowing him down. Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved on 2013-11-27.
  18. ↑ https://twitter.com/MEGAprivacy/status/405884032501567488
  19. ↑ Keynote at OSDC 2013 | Internet Ganesha. Internetganesha.wordpress.com (2013-11-07). Retrieved on 2013-11-27.
  20. ↑ https://mega.co.nz/#blog_23
  21. ↑ https://mega.co.nz/#blog_24
  22. ↑ Graeber, Charles (2013-03-28). "Megaupload Is Dead. Long Live Mega! | Threat Level". Wired.com. Retrieved 2013-06-14. 
  23. ↑ "Building Mega: Ars’ pre-launch interview with Kim Dotcom". Ars Technica. 19 January 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2013. 
  24. ↑ "SpiderOak’s Analysis and Recommendations for the Crypto in Kim Dotcom’s Mega, Part One". Spideroak.com. 23 January 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2013. 
  25. ↑ Admin (22 January 2013). "A word on cryptography". Mega.co.nz. Retrieved 27 June 2013. 
  26. ↑ Admin (26 January 2013). "Mega's first week - a retrospective". Mega.co.nz. Retrieved 27 June 2013. 
  27. ↑ Admin (2 February 2013). "The Mega Vulnerability Reward Program". Mega.co.nz. Retrieved 27 June 2013. 
  28. ↑ "MegaUpload rises from the dead as Mega – Internet & Media - CNET News". News.cnet.com. 18 October 2012. Retrieved 14 June 2013. 
  29. ↑ "Kim Dotcom announces mega will have 50 GB of free storage space". 17 January 2013. Retrieved 17 January 2013. 
  30. ↑ "Mega packages". Retrieved 8 February 2013. 
  31. ↑ "The Mega API". Mega.co.nz. Retrieved 27 June 2013. 
  32. ↑ "Using the Mega API, with Python examples! | Julien Marchand • Dev blog". Julien-marchand.fr. 28 January 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2013. 
  33. ↑ "sybil-sink/mega-sdk · GitHub". Github.com. 8 March 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2013. 
  34. ↑ Andres_age (28 February 2013). "MegaDownloader for Mega.co.nz: Watch videos online - streaming tutorial for Mega.co.nz". Megadownloaderapp.blogspot.com. Retrieved 14 June 2013. 
  35. ↑ "Windows client and .NET API for Mega". Mega Desktop. Retrieved 14 June 2013. 
  36. ↑ Admin (18 January 2013). "A word on browsers". Mega.co.nz. Retrieved 27 June 2013. 
  37. ↑ "Mega". Mega LTD. Retrieved 20 January 2014. 

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