
Mega update: Dotcom's service now accepts Bitcoin - Lightning
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/16/mega-update-dotcoms-service-now-accepts-bitcoin-will-expand-into-email-chat-voice-video-and-mobile/
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mtgx
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.

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stfu
I would be happy to pay money for a a Mega mail service if they would somewhat
match the Gmail functionality.

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w1ntermute
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>

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stfu
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.

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jrockway
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.)

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w1ntermute
The vast majority of people don't look at that info or know what it means
though.

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jiggy2011
People who write spam filters do though.

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pandaassembly
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
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.

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SlipperySlope
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
> as well as those desiring privacy.

Can you explain this part a bit?

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jlgreco
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.).

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malandrew
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.

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doublextremevil
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
Haha. no problem. I've seen it various ways and I guess I gravitated towards
BitCoin instead of bitcoin.

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meomix
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?

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josephagoss
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.

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alan_cx
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.

~~~
josephagoss
Your right, I just have a bad feeling about something as massive as Amazon
getting in on the game this soon.

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

~~~
lubos
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"

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StavrosK
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
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.

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StavrosK
You should read about convergent encryption. You can deduplicate plaintext
files without knowing what they are.

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JeremyBanks
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.

