It seemed like a closed case, didn't it? Not for Kim Dotcom, who is still in the legal arena trying to prevent his extradition to the United States. Amid this media whirlwind, the old Megaupload servers appear, still intact and holding the personal data of millions of users around the globe. With the case moving forward, a U.S. judge decided to explore the possibility of releasing that data, including the logistics and financial impact.
The story so far
We still remember January 20, 2012, when New Zealand authorities (in direct collaboration with the FBI and the U.S. justice system) arrested Kim Dotcom and three other Megaupload executives. In January 2013, Dotcom made Megaupload "return" through the new service Mega, but in September of that same year he resigned from his position as director, and last July he recommended that "nobody use Mega," since it supposedly is under the control of the New Zealand government. More recently, Dotcom finally had to appear in court to explain why he should not be extradited to the United States. However, the titanic Megaupload case has another element to consider: the enormous volume of data belonging to users of the old service.
The current situation
In August, the company QTS, which took over Carpathia Hosting and is now effectively the owner of Megaupload's servers, asked the court for authorization to purge the data, as it loses thousands of dollars monthly in storage. Both users and Dotcom and his representatives do not want a single byte to be touched (something that already happened with LeaseWeb, which deleted its servers without notice), and in September, the U.S. government denied any responsibility for the hardware, arguing that it already has all the necessary evidence. In an attempt to resolve this crossfire once and for all, Judge Liam O'Grady decided to send a series of questions to all involved, including the possibility of returning the data to its owners.
The judge's questions
The judge's questions are precise and touch on delicate issues such as the physical integrity of the data (it is possible that many hard drives have been damaged), the subsequent preservation of the data, the protection of confidentiality, and most importantly: what would be the estimated cost of bringing the servers online, and how users would be contacted. This advance by the judge is very good news for users, but especially for Dotcom, who insists that the servers contain critical evidence for his defense. The parties must respond before the end of next week.
