Categories
Computer internet Security

Megaupload is back without a Domain Name

Megaupload, the file sharing website that was shut down Thursday, is back up Friday — without a domain name.

This new site appears to be based in the Netherlands. You can access the site by clicking here: http://109.236.83.66/

After seven people were associated with the file-sharing company were indicted, hacker group Anonymous targeted websites for the Department of Justice, the MPAA, RIAA and UniversalMusic.

The federal shutdown of Megaupload came one day after sites like Wikipedia and Craigslist went dark in protest of SOPA/PIPA — legislative proposals that would make it easier for the government to crack down on piracy, or anything that might be deemed piracy.

Megaupload was hosted on leased servers in Virgina, giving federal agents the opportunity to intervene. The indictment was issued Jan. 5.

The Hong Kong-based Megaupload and the site’s other company Vestor Limited, plus seven individuals who worked for the site, are accused of laundering money and profiting from copyright infringement.

Before Megaupload was taken down Thursday, a post stated that allegations that the site massively infringed upon copyright laws was “grotesquely overblown.”

Last year, 37-year-old founder Kim “Dotcom” Schmitz reportedly earned $42 million from his site that shares pirated movies, music and other copyrighted content. The indictment states its facilitating of illegal downloads cost copyright holders $500 million dollars in lost revenue.

Schmitz, a resident of New Zealand and Hong Kong and three others involved with Megaupload were arrested on Thursday. Of the three others arrested, two are German citizens and one is a Dutch citizen. The three other suspects involved are from Germany, Slovakia and Estonia, respectively, and remain at-large.

Yesterday, the four who were arrested appeared in an Auckland, New Zealand, court to begin their trial that could take up to one year and result in up to 20 years in prison.

Categories
Cellphone Security

Home security on your iPhone

We all know how the iPhone can secure itself, but you can get it to secure your entire house as well.

A while back, I briefly toyed with the idea of going without a landline. It’s an alluring prospect, and strikes me as satisfyingly post-modern. But one thing held me back: my home security system, which relied on a landline to connect it to central monitoring. So even though I went through a brief affair with Vonage until Verizon FiOS Triple Play pulled me back in, I had to keep a limited line connected to the house for our security system.

I tried to get rid of it. Oh, how I tried. But until recently, retrofitting the system to go cellular, or swap it out with a more modern system using (for example) a secure cellular connection, always cost more than it was worth. Then our home security monitoring contract price went way up and all of a sudden, the price difference between retrofitting and acquiring a new system went down. That made getting the new system worthwhile.

I went about trying to find a security system that would give me the flexibility I needed, as well as the knowledge that I wasn’t compromising home security. I already ran a small security program in the house to run a video baby monitor, but for the whole house, I needed some kind of central monitoring. Enter Alarm.com.