10 Things The Internet Learned From Kim Dotcom

Kim Dotcom, a hacker that was able to take his knowledge and create a site called Megaupload, was recently arrested due to alleged copyright infringement allegations.  Even though he was the top dog in the company, he did not commit these crimes alone, and many other key players were also arrested in the wake of these crimes. Unfortunately, while this guy is obviously intelligent, he should have been using those brains for good instead of evil. However it wasn’t all bad, and some good did come from it. Check out 10 things the Internet learned from Kim Dotcom.

 

1. Cyberlocker technology: This has also been referred to as a ‘cloud storage infrastructure’.  Basically this technology allowed you to store files that were too large to e-mail for free on the Internet.  For instance, you could upload a big long wedding video and your family could go there to download it at no charge.  If they wanted to watch it or download it faster than they would need to pay a membership fee.
2. Paid people for file sharing: Dotcom introduced an incentive plan to entice people to upload files that would have mass appeal.  They are claiming that they did not tell people to upload first run movies or copyright protected items.  They would pay a user $5000 if their upload was downloaded a certain number of times in a 3 month period. 
3. Controlled download speeds for money: You can download files for free, but usually not very quickly. If you didn’t want to wait all day to do it you could buy a membership that would allow you to have faster download speeds, and  Dotcom made money by doing this.
4. Developed the first Internet car: With a $90,000 sticker price this car comes complete with video conferencing and a 17-inch display.  The computer on board was a Pentium III which was top of the line at the time.
5. Made being the middle man a good thing: Megaupload was convinced that they were not doing anything wrong because they were simply the middle man.  People would upload files and store them on their site just like you would place items in a safety deposit box. Then other people would download these files. Megaupload “claimed” to not to know what was being stored. There wasn’t a cost for the service unless you wanted to speed up the download speeds and then you needed to buy a membership.
6. Letting artists sell directly to the people: In this digital age there is no need to “cut” a record or record a CD because no one is going to buy it.  People download music now and listen to it on their phones and iPods.  Music artists don’t want to have to pay to make a record, they want to record their music and allow people to purchase the music directly from them.  Megaupload was the place that was going to store all of that music for them for a mere 10 %.  It was a brilliant idea to cut out the record labels.
7. File sharing technology: Over the years many companies have shared files, but until Kim Dotcom there hadn’t been the ability to store large quantities of data online that others could access for free.  Other companies followed in Megaupload’s footsteps and several have since shut down in light of recent events.
8. Internet security: Dotcom’s company Data Protect did actually help companies avoid hackers even though at the time he claimed to be one of the biggest hackers of the time and the leader of a group of hackers called Dope.
9. Internet crimes might be extraditable: Due to everything that is happening with Kim Dotcom, the United States has requested warrants internationally and caused the arrest of multiple people throughout the world based on Internet crime.  To extradite a person the crime normally has to be committed on the soil or property owned by that country.  Apparently the United States is claiming ownership of at least part of the Internet.
10. Trendax: Apparently this was another money making scheme by Dotcom, but it was all about investments made by artificial intelligence that looked at all of the stock trends and made suggestions on what stocks and such should be bought.  While Dotcom filed the Trendax name with the Hong Kong government nothing was ever filed with the SEC so no trades could take place.  There was an initial buy-in to get started and even though no trading was legally going on the company’s worth kept climbing.  Dotcom claimed his AI increased the funds by 130 percent.

Contacts and sources:  
Kate Croston 
http://www.internetservice.net/2012/10-things-the-internet-learned-from-kim-dotcom/