Mega has launched • Hacker News Board

Perhaps he should have launched it like Gmail: Gradual launch with invites. Launching a file sharing site with this much media attention is surely going to crash it.

Re: Mega has launched

#35

Post by benologist » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

His theory appears to be that by sharing keys via links to access encrypted files, instead of before which was exactly the same except to access unencrypted files, he will somehow be immune from persecution this time even though he still has the ability to identify infringing material by the traffic sources and bandwidth usage of individual files.

The tie in with web hosting companies adds an ounce of legitimacy to the affiliate program that originally led sites like the defunct tv-links.co.uk etc to throw traffic at their paywall last time but it won't be even close to enough if tomorrow there's millions of mega links on all the streaming and download indexing sites.

This will be very interesting to watch unfold.

Re: Mega has launched

#36

Post by DriesS » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

A lot of people say that megaupload is back, but if I'm not wrong this is totally something different then megaupload or do I make a mistake?

You can't share a link with the public anymore, only with an emailadres.

Re: Mega has launched

#37

Post by Alphasite_ » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

How exactly does this work, if they don't have access to the original?

> 8. Our service may automatically delete a piece of data you upload or give someone else access to where it determines that that data is an exact duplicate of original data already on our service. In that case, you will access that original data.

Re: Mega has launched

#38

Post by aw3c2 » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #30

So, it generated a key... which is being stored where? I can't seem to download it?

If you could download it, what use would it have. ;)

Re: Mega has launched

#39

Post by nessus42 » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

frewsxcv wrote: post #27

micheljansen wrote: post #21

After signing up, MEGA suggested that I download Google Chrome to use the service (I was using Safari). I was expecting some affiliate link there, but there wasn't any.

Well, why do you use Safari?

I use Safari because in my experience Chrome is rather buggy on a Mac. Particularly with regard to Spaces. E.g., if I move a Chrome window to a different Space, all of my other Chrome windows will tag along for the ride. It makes using Chrome rather unbearable. Additionally, Safari's interface for managing bookmarks is much nicer.

Re: Mega has launched

#40

Post by micheljansen » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

Does anyone understand how their implementation of client-side encryption is actually supposed to make my data safer? After logging in for the first time, a 2048-bit RSA key pair was generated, but it seems that every time I log in I just use a username (email) and password. Does that mean the RSA private key is stored on MEGA's servers? If so, doesn't that render the whole "client side encryption" bit moot? If MEGA has the private key, they can decrypt the data or am I missing something?

The service seems to have ground to a halt, and I am not able to upload anything, so perhaps this all becomes clear once one starts using the service, but I'm curious about how the encryption is used in practice.

Edit: Found a bit more detail in the developer documentation: https://mega.co.nz/#developers According to this, they use the symmetrical AES-128 to encrypt files, so why do I need an (asymmetrical) RSA key pair? It also says there that the private part of the RSA key is stored encrypted with the symmetrical AES key, but MEGA has that key, so what good does that do in case of an FBI raid?

One of the things that I was most curious about regarding MEGA was to see how they would manage to make encrypted file storage safe but user friendly. It seems like this is user friendly, but not safe at all, or am I wrong?