Kim Dotcom: Petabytes of Megaupload users' data has been destroyed
In late 2011, Kim Dotcom's Megaupload file-sharing site was one of the top 100 websites in the world. Then, the FBI, working in concert with New Zealand police, seized the site and all the user files within its servers.
Dotcom's legal battles continues, but he now claims that Netherlands-based web-hosting company LeaseWeb has deleted millions of users' files, "petabytes of pictures, backups, personal and business property".
When the federal government first seized Megaupload's servers, it threatened to destroy all data within weeks of the seizure. Later, the government and the hosting companies agreed to preserve users' data until some future time.
According to Dotcom, LeaseWeb deleted Megaupload's European customers' data on February 1, 2013. Other web hosting companies with Megaupload data, such as Carpathia Hosting and Cogent, are continuing to preserve Megaupload users' data.
Dotcom is outraged by this action. In a series of Twitter messages, he started by saying "VERY BAD NEWS: #Leaseweb has wiped ALL #Megaupload servers. All user data & crucial evidence for our defense destroyed 'without warning.'"
From there, he snarled, "This is the largest data massacre in the history of the Internet caused by the U.S. government, the Department of Justice & #Leaseweb."
What could LeaseWeb have done instead? Dotcom wrote, "While #Carpathia has chosen to store #Megaupload servers in a warehouse to protect the data from destruction #Leaseweb has done the opposite." He added, "Our lawyers have repeatedly asked #Leaseweb not to delete #Megaupload servers while court proceedings are pending in the U.S."
Instead, "Let me be crystal clear. #Leaseweb has NEVER informed our legal team or anybody at #Megaupload about the deletion of servers until TODAY." He added, "Our legal team and @EFF have written several data preservation demands to #Leaseweb. We were never warned about the deletion."
Dotcom also said that after the 2012 seizure, LeaseWeb never returned his calls, but now the company is telling him, "We informed Megaupload about our plans to start using the servers again, but no reply from them." His response: "Who believes this crap?"
While Dotcom is enraged at LeaseWeb, and its CEO Con Zwinkels in particular, he's not encouraging any kind of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the company's websites. "I see postings from Hackers wanting to attack #Leaseweb for the deletion of #Megaupload data. PLEASE DON'T. #Leaseweb customers are innocent."
In the face of all these attacks, LeaseWeb has not responded to requests asking for its side of the story.
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