Kim Dotcom's new Mega project • Hacker News Board

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#121

Post by thomasz » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 9:40 AM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #93

res0nat0r wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because youtubes primary purpose for existing doesn't depend on copyright infringement. MU was raided because of their alleged blatant infringement and non DMCA good faith compliance.

I suggest you read the evidence in Viacom vs YouTube, their founders admitted as much in internal emails that most of the early traffic was copyright material. http://www.fastcompany.com/1588353/steal-it-and-other-intern... The real answer to my hypothetical question is that there is no difference. One just happens to be run by a German hacker while the other by upstanding citizens of Silicon Valley. One beat a civil…

Kim is not a hacker. At least he wasn't when the media declared him one, as he had never written a single line of code. Maybe he learned something since then, but I doubt that. His talents lie elsewhere. He was very good at deception - he somehow convinced a journalist that he was able to hack a GSM phone for example. Or convincing mobsters to invest in his pump and dump schemes. If you understand German, you can follow some of his interactions with the German hacking crowd at http://arnold.babsi.de/KIMBLE.txt. It's not pretty.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#122

Post by thomasz » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 9:44 AM UTC

rscale wrote: post #18

ryanpers wrote: post #10

I was neutral on this guy until I read the wired story, and then I became a fan. He is a self made man (way more so than romney!), he suffers from persistent discrimination (overweight) and he has cycled thru the hero's journey. I have heard a lot of these "major success stories", but they are people who have been put in ideal situations and then they made the best of it. That is just emotionally dead for me. Kim's s…

He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal…

He didn't 'hack for profit'. He was a fence with a modem, nothing more.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#123

Post by kapnobatairza » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 9:52 AM UTC

pyre wrote: post #85

temphn wrote: post #20

It would be very interesting if he decides to use bitcoin or something similar for this.

How volatile is the bitcoin right now? For example, what happens when the bitcoin raises 200% vs. the US dollar? Do you change your pricing? What happens if it then drops the next day?

Bitcoin is a relatively stable asset and currency as far as I can tell.

Bitcoin's value in relation to the dollar is a product of demand and supply, like any other currency. However, given that supply is "hard coded" in the algorithm, supply is more or less a constant variable. That leaves demand.

Demand is there as long as Bitcoin has transactional value (how many people accept it as a form of payment) and asset value (how attractive it is as a store of value). Bitcoin has price floors as long as it is useful in transactions (for example, as long as online black markets like Silk Road flourish) and as long as Bitcoin "enthusiasts" accept it as an asset.

Barring some way for the government to thwart the TOR + Bitcoin combo for making anonymous online transactions, I would think that any volatility in the BTC-USD exchange rate would come from volatility in the value of the dollar over that of BTC.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#124

Post by lmm » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 10:35 AM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #67

radicaldreamer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so if he's been prosecuted for it and served his time, then he's fulfilled his debt to society, no?

It means "he's a self-made man" is a claim which needs to be shot down, and that's the claim that was being shot down.

How so? If he committed some crime, got convicted, did the time, then started a business and bootstrapped to success, how is that not a self-made man? A great many successful entrepreneurs (Branson comes immediately to mind) were criminals before they were successful.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#125

Post by chmod775 » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 10:36 AM UTC

pyre wrote: post #85

temphn wrote: post #20

It would be very interesting if he decides to use bitcoin or something similar for this.

How volatile is the bitcoin right now? For example, what happens when the bitcoin raises 200% vs. the US dollar? Do you change your pricing? What happens if it then drops the next day?

History tells us that the US dollar is much more volatile than bitcoin can be.

Plus I do not think that Kim will want to have anything to do with that currency.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#126

Post by lmm » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 10:38 AM UTC

sgt wrote: post #112

"Multi-centric data warehousing"? I don't think Kim knows what the term Data Warehousing usually means.

It's a stupid term, kudos to him for using it in a way that makes more sense.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#127

Post by lmm » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 10:42 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #96

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't stop the USA last time ...

The things he was accused of were illegal in New Zealand also.

Really? I was under the impression NZ didn't have the criminal conspiracy law the US was using.

(Copyright infringement is of course illegal in NZ, but that's a civil matter and not what he was supposedly arrested for).

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#128

Post by zurn » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 11:00 AM UTC

alexhawdon wrote: post #40

ryanpers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was years ago when he was a teenager. Many people went thru an "illegal period", his was just... more successful than most. As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths? I find that argument... not compelling. Like it or not, sociopathy appears to be an integral/essential part of human organizations.

"Many people went thru an 'illegal period'..." What? I think there's a pretty massive difference between the speeding, soft-drugs, petty vandalism and theft that characterise common illegal teenage behaviours and large scale fraud. Even sat behind a keyboard far-removed from your victims I'm sure the difference becomes readily apparent when the number at the bottom of your bank statement is a few digits longer than t…

That's the problem with the "criminal" term. Don't confuse moral and legalities.

Much better to comment on whether you think he's done something inexcusably wrong or not.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#129

Post by shiven » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 11:16 AM UTC

rscale wrote: post #18

ryanpers wrote: post #10

I was neutral on this guy until I read the wired story, and then I became a fan. He is a self made man (way more so than romney!), he suffers from persistent discrimination (overweight) and he has cycled thru the hero's journey. I have heard a lot of these "major success stories", but they are people who have been put in ideal situations and then they made the best of it. That is just emotionally dead for me. Kim's s…

He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal…

Welcome to CAPITALISM 101. All ethics are mere shades of grey. What is bad today will be good tomorrow, the villains will be heroes, the heroes will be losers who could have done more and every starry-eyed sucker aspiring to "make it" will swing like a pendulum within that grey spectrum, like it or not.

So, where in the grey zone are you, today?

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#130

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 11:43 AM UTC

guylhem wrote: post #12

zinssmeister wrote: post #6

lame.

That's an interesting 5 letters reply. Does that means you have something to show which might stand the comparison? The guy did it, has a strong brand recognition and people who publicly expressed their sadness that megaupload was gone and their eagerness to give him their business again. Now he is out there to get some. I say good luck to him.

The issue here isn't that you need to do something better to critique what someone else has done. You don't need to write a book to have an opinion on a book.

The issue is that it adds nothing useful to the discussion.