Court Report: Hacked off
Hamish McNicol weighs up privacy, hackers, and the Republic of Kazakhstan's “unenviable” human rights. With special feature audio.
A “responsible and appropriate” objection to the Republic of Kazakhstan was not enough for file storage firm Mega to convince a High Court judge it should not have to release information which could identify alleged hackers.
In March, NBR covered an Auckland High Court hearing in which the Kazakhstan government sought to obtain evidence from Mega, founded by Kim Dotcom.
This followed an alleged hacking of its computer systems and email accounts, from which highly confidential government documents were obtained and some posted on the file storage firm’s website.
Kazakhstan had argued Mega was the last stop in its attempts to identify the alleged hackers, after other attempts with Google, Facebook and local news organisations had failed.
But Mega, which prides itself on privacy, took a “principled” opposition to the claim, on the grounds of Kazakhstan’s “unenviable” human rights record.
Justice Simon Moore last week granted Kazakhstan’s orders, but in doing so, declined to order costs against Mega, saying it had brought a “responsible and appropriate” objection.
Mega chairman Stephen Hall says the company is very disappointed in the decision, and continues to mull an appeal.
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NBR Radio
Thu, 19 May 2016
Thu, 19 May 2016
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Court Report: Hacked off
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