Monday, January 23, 2012

More about Kim Dotcom

Kim Dotcom is still in New Zealand jail - but he is willing to fight and as reported he has hired the best lawyers possible. On Monday (today) there will be the decision if he will be granted bail. Personally (I do not know that guy - from all the reports about his lifestyle, maybe he is a little a**h**e - but who knows). If he has really broken the law (or only smart enough using loopholes) this will be decided by somebody else. The US want him that urgently - this is a problem for him.
Here some more info about the whole story (Click here )
This is from NATIONAL POST:
quote
Kim Dotcom, Megaupload founder, claims he is ‘smarter than Bill Gates’
Jan 22, 2012 – 10:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Jan 22, 2012 10:29 AM ET
By Lincoln Feast and Sarah Marsh
Among the roll-call of hip-hop artists and other celebrities plugging Megaupload.com’s digital storage services in an online promotional video, a cameo from the website’s founder would have gone unnoticed by many.
STR/AFP/Getty Images
This TV grab shows Internet guru and founder of Megaupload.com, Kim Schmitz, also known as "Kim Dotcom", in an Auckland district court in New Zealand on January 20, 2012.
As the voiceover boasts of the site’s billion users and four percent share of all Internet traffic, a colossal figure clad in black appears in a music studio.
“Bit by bit, it’s a hit, it’s a hit!” founder Kim Dotcom booms in a slight accent that hints at his German roots.
The hits may have just run out for Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Investor, who spent his 38th birthday on Saturday in a New Zealand jail after 70 police raided his country estate and cut him out of a safe room he had barricaded himself in.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which requested the raid, says Dotcom masterminded a scheme that made more than $175 million in a few short years by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization.
Click here to read the FBI’s full statement regarding the charges against Mr. Dotcom
Megaupload’s U.S. lawyer said the company merely offered online storage, would “vigorously defend itself” and was trying to recover its servers and get back online.
The arrest marks the latest twist in the checkered story of Dotcom, a former hacker who got his first computer at nine before going on to build an Internet fortune and friendships with music stars including Alicia Keys, Will.i.am and P.Diddy who appeared on the Megaupload.com promo video.
EARLY STARTER
Born in the German city of Kiel, Dotcom — who was then known as Schmitz — grew up in northern Germany.
Nigel Marple/Reuters
Giraffe statues stand in the grounds of the Dotcom Mansion, home of accused Kim Dotcom, who founded the Megaupload.com site and ran it from the $30 million mansion, is seen in Coatesville January 21, 2012.
As a child, he made copies of computer games to sell to his friends, and in the early days of the Internet, began hacking into computers via telephones, according to reputed German daily Die Welt.
Schmitz has made no secret of his controversial past as a cyber-raider, hacking into computer networks at NASA, the Pentagon and at least one major bank.
As the hacker pioneer generation came of age, so did Schmitz. After being convicted of computer hacking in 1998, he made a fortune providing computer security consulting and venture capital investment via the firm Kimvestor.
According to German magazine Der Spiegel, Schmitz once boasted he would become one of the richest men in the world. How was he so sure? “I’m smarter than Bill Gates,” he said.
Schmitz, who also called himself Kimble after the wrongly convicted doctor-on-the-run in the film “The Fugitive,” became well known for his lavish lifestyle as much as his computer skills.
He briefly became a fixture in Germany’s nouveau riche party scene and made his own film, shot with a hand-held camera, Kimble Goes Monaco. The hulking Schmitz — reportedly two meters tall and weighing more than 130 kg — was often shown in Germany’s tabloid press with fast cars and a model on his arm.
unquote
GOOD LUCK KIM !

No comments: