Megaupload shut down by FBI

Megaupload is one of the internet’s largest file-sharing sites. This website has 150 million registered users and about 50 million hits daily and endorsements from music superstars (USAtoday.com). BBC reports that Megaupload has been shut down by federal prosecutors in Virginia, on charges that it illegally shared movies, television shows and e-books. Data centers in the Netherlands, Canada and Washington housing MegaUpload’s equipment were raided.

The U.S. Justice Department and FBI announced:

“Seven individuals and two corporations have been charged in the United States with running an international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted works, through Megaupload.com and other related sites, generating more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and causing more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners.”

This shutdown was possible because Megaupload architecture was centralized. This disaster highlights some important points. Your website can be shutdown by politicals or terrorists when:

• your website depends on DNS server;
• your website is hosted by a centralized solution;
• all your data are centralized.

There is eventual illegal use of Megaupload. Clients how use legaly the Megaupload service saw their service shutdown.