6 ms·

Mega update: Dotcom's service now accepts Bitcoin

153 points by Lightning 14y ago

SlipperySlope 14y ago
especially ... "Bitcoin is a perfect fit for Mega, which wants to distance itself from governments as much as possible." my take ... Bitcoin is a perfect payment option for global merchants who have customers in countries where credit card fraud is rampant - as well as those desiring privacy. Coincidentally, I performed an international wire transfer today where the outbound fee was about 4%. If my merchant had accepted bitcoins it would have cost me only 1% to get my dollars into Coinbase bitcoin and my merchant would likewise incur a low fee to get their received bitcoin payment into Polish currency. Indeed, the bitcoin economy is growing exponentially - from a very small base.
- nodata 14y ago
  > as well as those desiring privacy. Can you explain this part a bit?
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Better than credit cards, worse than cash. There aren't any mixer services, for whatever they may or may not be worth, that work for credit cards (and you don't necessarily have to get bitcoins in a way that traces back to you. You could, for example, buy some weed with cash and sell it for bitcoins.).
  - kolinko 14y ago
    You want to buy something, and you don't want that on your credit card bill. BTC is the way to go.
- lolcraft 14y ago
  My take: Kim Dotcom knows very well that Bitcoin is an absurdly deflationary currency, and wants to long it as much as he can, as soon as he can. As you very well point out, there's a possibility the bitcoin economy will grow exponentially, from a very small monetary base :)
  - badgar 14y ago
    Betting big on hoarding bitcoins? Seems smart, almost like it's part of the design. /s
evoorhees 14y ago
With Mega, files are cryptographically safe. With Bitcoin, money is cryptographically safe. Of course they had to marry.
- lubos 14y ago
  I still don't understand how files are "cryptographically safe" on Mega The problem is, somehow they know if two people upload the same file even though this should be impossible if they do bullet proof client-side encryption. This does make Mega anything but "cryptographically safe"
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    It does work, if you read up on how the encryption works, you'll see it's sound. I don't know how secure mega is, but deduplicating encrypted data is possible.
    - jonpeda 14y ago
      but then 'duplication" only happens if the source file is shared post-encryption, which is far less common than sharing pre-encryption, sync post-encryption sharing requires sharing the key as well.
      - StavrosK 14y ago
        You should read about convergent encryption. You can deduplicate plaintext files without knowing what they are.
        JeremyBanks 14y ago
        They don't use convergent encryption, they randomly generated keys when files are uploaded. The only deduplication that exists is when you copy a file that's been shared with you by another user, because in this particular case you also copy the key. "Secure" isn't boolean. Although convergent encryption will prevent people from accessing your secret data, it does have different security properties: Mega would be able to determine whether you have a particular file, which they cannot with the current system.
mtgx 14y ago
I love Gmail, but I think I'd move my main e-mail to Mega if they launched a good one. I don't think foreigners' data is very safe with American businesses and on American territory. The US government seems to care very little about protecting the privacy of US citizens, let alone of foreigners, for which they feel no obligation to protect.
- stfu 14y ago
  I would be happy to pay money for a a Mega mail service if they would somewhat match the Gmail functionality.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    MegaMail would be a great name for an email service. It looks like they'd have to acquire the trademark first though[0]. 0: https://www.google.com/search?q=megamail https://www.google.com/search?q=megamail
    - stfu 14y ago
      Plus they should allow as early as possible to connect existing domain names with their service. I wouldn't want to know everybody that I'm sailing under an offshore pirate flag. Primary users would probably come from the grey'er corner of the Internet, so it will most likely lead to some flagging/spam/etc issues.
      - jrockway 14y ago
        The reputation is typically assigned to outbound IPs or signing keys, so new domain names wouldn't do much. (Even then, a simple "dig mx your-email-domain.com" would reveal who hosts your email.)
        w1ntermute 14y ago
        The vast majority of people don't look at that info or know what it means though.
malandrew 14y ago
I kind of hope these kinds of issues become more common. The more draconian and in the pocket of private interests the US becomes, the more it promotes use of services that no one by the copyright lobby see as illegitimate. I guess I secretly hope that we (the US) lose our hegemony over certain internet services due to our terrible framework for privacy and having so many laws written by the copyright fundamentalist lobby. Backwards laws and enforcement is increasing innovation with respect to privacy and financial innovation. BitCoin is super important in terms of giving consumers the right to buy any service they want anywhere in the world regardless of legislation. This takes care of financial blockades by banks and credit card providers. The only other place to block things besides at the financial layer is at the network layer and that is easily solvable by using VPS services anywhere in the world that doesn't enforce a network blockade. These VPS services can also choose to accept BitCoin.
- doublextremevil 14y ago
  I apologise, but the pedant in me can't help but point out that your capitalization "BitCoin" is incorrect. For talking about the network and software, use "Bitcoin". When talking about the currency, use "bitcoin", no capitals, as one would with "dollar"
  - malandrew 14y ago
    Haha. no problem. I've seen it various ways and I guess I gravitated towards BitCoin instead of bitcoin.
meomix 14y ago
What would it take for a major player in the the field of eCommerce to accept this? Let's say an Amazon.com, Newegg, etc. Any guesses to what would happen to the value of BTC?
- josephagoss 14y ago
  I think Amazon accepting BTC right now would be a disaster, the value of BTC would have to shoot up very fast and high, and the resulting instability would look awful and then Amazon would be forced to remove support for BTC making a massive PR problem for BTC.
  - RaphiePS 14y ago
    I don't think rapid fluctuation is a problem. I think Bitcoin has a future as a transfer medium. Person A converts their money into BTC and sends it to Person B, who immediately converts it back into "real" money. As long as the conversions are close enough together, the actual value of the bitcoins doesn't matter. Sure, some hardcore users will continue to hoard and speculate. But in my opinion, the real value of Bitcoin is as a secure, anonymous, digital means to send money.
    - jackowayed 14y ago
      I wonder what the anonymity implications would be if that usecase became predominant, especially if one exchange wins out. Correlating purchase of n BTC and conversion of n BTC to real currency could reveal who was paying whom.
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    Dont you think there would be an initial sort of violent (I could use a better word there) revaluation which would quickly settle down in to something stable? I suppose a bit like initial trading of a new businesses on the stock exchange, perhaps? My, granted ignorant, assumption is that BTC would keep revaluating each time a big organisation adopted it, but that "reaction" would smooth out as more and more organisations adopted it and its value settled. So, yes, initial pain, but surely all interested would know and accept that in advance. As usual, early adopters accept the pain as it were. But early adopters in general are up for that for the thrill, if you like, of being there at the beginning. A bit like people who buy Tesla cars. They know its not perfect and that there will be some pain, but they love it anyway.
pandaassembly 14y ago
A business (Mega) whose profits will be mainly generated by exploiting copyright infringements will be accepting a currency that's mainly used for illegal activities such as buying drugs, money laundering...a perfect match! Before anyone comments: I`m well aware that both Mega as well as Bitcoin CAN be used for non questionable purposes. Their main usage as of today are some sort of illegal or at least questionable activities. I`m still surprised how much love Kim Schmitz receives from liberal minded HN fellows - unaware that he is gladly taking your believes as a thin cover-up to conduct at least questionable business.
- Hermel 14y ago
  Mega as well as Bitcoin have both a very liberal philosophical foundation by strengthening personal property rights. Bitcoin helps preserving and moving wealth without government intervention and Mega helps preserving and moving data without government intervention. In times of increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional democratic processes, this is the right thing to do. Note that legal and morally right is not always the same. This is a basic premise your our TV tells you every day (e.g. Jack Bauer illegally torturing suspects or Robin Hood stealing from the rich). I believe that both Bitcoin and Mega make the world a better place.
- jrogers65 14y ago
  This comment seems to make the assumption that something being illegal makes it wrong. You can buy soft and hard drugs in your local supermarket, just a very small subset of them. Caffeine is used by almost everybody and it qualifies as a soft drug. Alchohol is used by the majority of the population and it is a hard drug. Tobacco is a soft drug in terms of psychological effects and a hard one in terms of it's physical impact. If the law is so irrational as to categorise many other soft and hard drugs as a danger, why should people not side-step it? What is the benefit of jumping off an intellectual cliff just because the majority of people are doing so? Copyright infringement is based on similarly irrational laws. They are for the benefit of the few and harm society as a whole. Culture has traditionally been free to share. This brings the benefit of giving people access to materials which inspire thoughts and feelings that they might not otherwise come across. This, in turn, provides a greater probability of innovative and novel ideas coming about, which benefit everybody. Intellectual property has been described by many people as an oxymoron. In my opinion, the questionable activities are not of those who use bitcoin to buy illicit substances or use Mega or Torrents to access cultural artifacts but of the governments who subscribe to the notion that these activities are negative and that violence must be used against those who participate.

153 points by Lightning 14y ago

especially ... "Bitcoin is a perfect fit for Mega, which wants to distance itself from governments as much as possible." my take ... Bitcoin is a perfect payment option for global merchants who have customers in countries where credit card fraud is rampant - as well as those desiring privacy. Coincidentally, I performed an international wire transfer today where the outbound fee was about 4%. If my merchant had accepted bitcoins it would have cost me only 1% to get my dollars into Coinbase bitcoin and my merchant would likewise incur a low fee to get their received bitcoin payment into Polish currency. Indeed, the bitcoin economy is growing exponentially - from a very small base.

nodata 14y ago
> as well as those desiring privacy. Can you explain this part a bit?
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Better than credit cards, worse than cash. There aren't any mixer services, for whatever they may or may not be worth, that work for credit cards (and you don't necessarily have to get bitcoins in a way that traces back to you. You could, for example, buy some weed with cash and sell it for bitcoins.).
- kolinko 14y ago
  You want to buy something, and you don't want that on your credit card bill. BTC is the way to go.
lolcraft 14y ago
My take: Kim Dotcom knows very well that Bitcoin is an absurdly deflationary currency, and wants to long it as much as he can, as soon as he can. As you very well point out, there's a possibility the bitcoin economy will grow exponentially, from a very small monetary base :)
- badgar 14y ago
  Betting big on hoarding bitcoins? Seems smart, almost like it's part of the design. /s

evoorhees 14y ago

With Mega, files are cryptographically safe. With Bitcoin, money is cryptographically safe. Of course they had to marry.

lubos 14y ago
I still don't understand how files are "cryptographically safe" on Mega The problem is, somehow they know if two people upload the same file even though this should be impossible if they do bullet proof client-side encryption. This does make Mega anything but "cryptographically safe"
- StavrosK 14y ago
  It does work, if you read up on how the encryption works, you'll see it's sound. I don't know how secure mega is, but deduplicating encrypted data is possible.
  - jonpeda 14y ago
    but then 'duplication" only happens if the source file is shared post-encryption, which is far less common than sharing pre-encryption, sync post-encryption sharing requires sharing the key as well.
    - StavrosK 14y ago
      You should read about convergent encryption. You can deduplicate plaintext files without knowing what they are.
      - JeremyBanks 14y ago
        They don't use convergent encryption, they randomly generated keys when files are uploaded. The only deduplication that exists is when you copy a file that's been shared with you by another user, because in this particular case you also copy the key. "Secure" isn't boolean. Although convergent encryption will prevent people from accessing your secret data, it does have different security properties: Mega would be able to determine whether you have a particular file, which they cannot with the current system.

mtgx 14y ago

I love Gmail, but I think I'd move my main e-mail to Mega if they launched a good one. I don't think foreigners' data is very safe with American businesses and on American territory. The US government seems to care very little about protecting the privacy of US citizens, let alone of foreigners, for which they feel no obligation to protect.

stfu 14y ago
I would be happy to pay money for a a Mega mail service if they would somewhat match the Gmail functionality.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  MegaMail would be a great name for an email service. It looks like they'd have to acquire the trademark first though[0]. 0: https://www.google.com/search?q=megamail https://www.google.com/search?q=megamail
  - stfu 14y ago
    Plus they should allow as early as possible to connect existing domain names with their service. I wouldn't want to know everybody that I'm sailing under an offshore pirate flag. Primary users would probably come from the grey'er corner of the Internet, so it will most likely lead to some flagging/spam/etc issues.
    - jrockway 14y ago
      The reputation is typically assigned to outbound IPs or signing keys, so new domain names wouldn't do much. (Even then, a simple "dig mx your-email-domain.com" would reveal who hosts your email.)
      - w1ntermute 14y ago
        The vast majority of people don't look at that info or know what it means though.

malandrew 14y ago

I kind of hope these kinds of issues become more common. The more draconian and in the pocket of private interests the US becomes, the more it promotes use of services that no one by the copyright lobby see as illegitimate. I guess I secretly hope that we (the US) lose our hegemony over certain internet services due to our terrible framework for privacy and having so many laws written by the copyright fundamentalist lobby. Backwards laws and enforcement is increasing innovation with respect to privacy and financial innovation. BitCoin is super important in terms of giving consumers the right to buy any service they want anywhere in the world regardless of legislation. This takes care of financial blockades by banks and credit card providers. The only other place to block things besides at the financial layer is at the network layer and that is easily solvable by using VPS services anywhere in the world that doesn't enforce a network blockade. These VPS services can also choose to accept BitCoin.

doublextremevil 14y ago
I apologise, but the pedant in me can't help but point out that your capitalization "BitCoin" is incorrect. For talking about the network and software, use "Bitcoin". When talking about the currency, use "bitcoin", no capitals, as one would with "dollar"
- malandrew 14y ago
  Haha. no problem. I've seen it various ways and I guess I gravitated towards BitCoin instead of bitcoin.

meomix 14y ago

What would it take for a major player in the the field of eCommerce to accept this? Let's say an Amazon.com, Newegg, etc. Any guesses to what would happen to the value of BTC?

josephagoss 14y ago
I think Amazon accepting BTC right now would be a disaster, the value of BTC would have to shoot up very fast and high, and the resulting instability would look awful and then Amazon would be forced to remove support for BTC making a massive PR problem for BTC.
- RaphiePS 14y ago
  I don't think rapid fluctuation is a problem. I think Bitcoin has a future as a transfer medium. Person A converts their money into BTC and sends it to Person B, who immediately converts it back into "real" money. As long as the conversions are close enough together, the actual value of the bitcoins doesn't matter. Sure, some hardcore users will continue to hoard and speculate. But in my opinion, the real value of Bitcoin is as a secure, anonymous, digital means to send money.
  - jackowayed 14y ago
    I wonder what the anonymity implications would be if that usecase became predominant, especially if one exchange wins out. Correlating purchase of n BTC and conversion of n BTC to real currency could reveal who was paying whom.
- alan_cx 14y ago
  Dont you think there would be an initial sort of violent (I could use a better word there) revaluation which would quickly settle down in to something stable? I suppose a bit like initial trading of a new businesses on the stock exchange, perhaps? My, granted ignorant, assumption is that BTC would keep revaluating each time a big organisation adopted it, but that "reaction" would smooth out as more and more organisations adopted it and its value settled. So, yes, initial pain, but surely all interested would know and accept that in advance. As usual, early adopters accept the pain as it were. But early adopters in general are up for that for the thrill, if you like, of being there at the beginning. A bit like people who buy Tesla cars. They know its not perfect and that there will be some pain, but they love it anyway.

pandaassembly 14y ago

A business (Mega) whose profits will be mainly generated by exploiting copyright infringements will be accepting a currency that's mainly used for illegal activities such as buying drugs, money laundering...a perfect match! Before anyone comments: I`m well aware that both Mega as well as Bitcoin CAN be used for non questionable purposes. Their main usage as of today are some sort of illegal or at least questionable activities. I`m still surprised how much love Kim Schmitz receives from liberal minded HN fellows - unaware that he is gladly taking your believes as a thin cover-up to conduct at least questionable business.

Hermel 14y ago
Mega as well as Bitcoin have both a very liberal philosophical foundation by strengthening personal property rights. Bitcoin helps preserving and moving wealth without government intervention and Mega helps preserving and moving data without government intervention. In times of increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional democratic processes, this is the right thing to do. Note that legal and morally right is not always the same. This is a basic premise your our TV tells you every day (e.g. Jack Bauer illegally torturing suspects or Robin Hood stealing from the rich). I believe that both Bitcoin and Mega make the world a better place.
jrogers65 14y ago
This comment seems to make the assumption that something being illegal makes it wrong. You can buy soft and hard drugs in your local supermarket, just a very small subset of them. Caffeine is used by almost everybody and it qualifies as a soft drug. Alchohol is used by the majority of the population and it is a hard drug. Tobacco is a soft drug in terms of psychological effects and a hard one in terms of it's physical impact. If the law is so irrational as to categorise many other soft and hard drugs as a danger, why should people not side-step it? What is the benefit of jumping off an intellectual cliff just because the majority of people are doing so? Copyright infringement is based on similarly irrational laws. They are for the benefit of the few and harm society as a whole. Culture has traditionally been free to share. This brings the benefit of giving people access to materials which inspire thoughts and feelings that they might not otherwise come across. This, in turn, provides a greater probability of innovative and novel ideas coming about, which benefit everybody. Intellectual property has been described by many people as an oxymoron. In my opinion, the questionable activities are not of those who use bitcoin to buy illicit substances or use Mega or Torrents to access cultural artifacts but of the governments who subscribe to the notion that these activities are negative and that violence must be used against those who participate.