Failures of the "mega-launching" of Kim Dotcom

Kim "Dotcom" launched Saturday, January 19, its new storage service. For the presentation of his service, a year to the day after the offline Megaupload, Kim Schmitz once again relied on excess, and organized a launch with great fanfare.

Photo credit: Reuters / NIGEL MARPLE

Mr. Schmitz also claimed one million registered its new service, twenty-four hours after its launch. This offer digital propose a free storage space of 50 GB, in the upper range of the domain protected by encryption.
   
The service remains inaccessible Monday. During the first hours, it seemed impossible for a large number of users to access their account. Now, the web interface is more easily accessible, but downloading files, even small, remains uncertain.

CRITICAL ENCRYPTION

Mega relies heavily on data encryption, based on RSA key 2048 bits generated by the user's browser, to assure the safety of data. For Nadim Kobeissi, the origin of secure messaging system Cryptocat, the security wants to leave yet.

"Mega encryption uses JavaScript to generate RSA keys, collecting mouse movements and keystrokes. It uses (encryption) AES, just like older versions of Cryptocat. We have done much better since then, "said the expert, adding that encryption is deactivated unilaterally for some users.

For specialized blogger bluetouff the encryption mechanism would also be too simple, so too predictable. "We in the end relatively few parameters for random generation serious RSA private keys, we deduce that the sequence prediction generation of these keys is breakable," says a ticket specialist in security service.

The important thing for the company, as Kim Dotcom displays itself, is that the data hosted on its servers are encrypted. Thus, in case of foreclosure, these data will be logically unusable by the authorities, which may be more difficult to turn against Mega as against Megaupload, which hosted all the files in plain. The encryption is one way to protect the service, less its users.