As though taking a site down used by an immeasurable amount of people and subsequently invoking the wrath of Anonymous, while taking action against the admins outside of US territory, for a site based in China wasn’t enough, the security of the data on Megaupload is uncertain.
Federal officials sent a letter to the lawyers representing Megaupload to let them know that the US DOJ has completed their search of the Megaupload servers, and that the government no longer controls access to the data. Information was taken as evidence, but nothing was deleted. The hosting companies are now the sole controllers of the data, and Neil MacBride wrote in the letter “It is our understanding that the hosting companies may begin deleting the contents of the servers beginning as early as February 2, 2012”.
If Megaupload’s data is deleted, then 50 million customers could lose their files. I myself am affected by this as a backup of files I recently lost physically are stored on Megaupload and I will be QUITE FURIOUS if it gets lost. Megaupload’s attorney Ira Rothken said that he is cautiously optimistic because the United States as well as Megaupload should have the common desire to protect customers, and that he plans to use the overwhelming percentage of legit data in Megaupload’s defense.
When you consider the amount of backlash that happened against government sites and an explosion of anger on Facebook and Twitter when the site was taken down, the hosting company deleting the Megaupload files could spell distaster. If the hosts delete the data, the reaction could result in another DDOS attack against them. A DDOS against a hosting company is much more brutal than just a few sites, as countless innocents get caught in the crossfire, and uptime guarantees never seem to apply to DDOS attacks. Of course this means that one DDOS attack means many angry customers packing up their bags and leaving for your rivals, causing damage to your bottom line.
