Mega ordered to attend High Court to answer questions about hacked documents from Kazakhstan

Thursday 12th May 2016

The High Court has ruled that a representative of Mega must front up to answer questions and supply documents that would help the Republic of Kazakhstan identify those responsible for hacking into its government computer systems in 2014 and stealing thousands of sensitive document that were then posted on the file-sharing site.

Justice Simon Moore made the ruling in favour of Kazakhstan, which had previously filed a civil action in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York against unknown 'Doe' defendants who had hacked its computers, seeking monetary damages and a permanent injunction.

The republic had determined that the files were stored on the Mega site and obtained a letter of request Judge Ramos of the SDNY to the New Zealand High Court seeking assistance in obtaining IP and email addresses, contact, account and payment information about the Mega customers that had posted the files.

Judge Ramos had granted an interim injunction against further dissemination of the stolen documents and granted the republic leave to serve subpoenas on companies’ websites on which the documents had been posted.

The republic became aware of the hacking only in early 2015, when Kazakhstan's Respublika opposition party posted some of the documents on its facebook page and its own website.

Mega's lawyer, Fletcher Pilditch, had argued that Mega doesn't know the content of what is stored on its site behind encryption processes that involve a key known only to the user. As a privacy company, Mega would challenge attempts to access personal data of its users, even though its terms and conditions forbid criminality.

Among his arguments was the need to preserve New Zealand’s international reputation for maintaining adequate standards of data protection and said New Zealand law couldn't be used to compel Mega to play a part in Kazakhstan's investigation.

Pilditch also argued that Mega was concerned that if it divulged the identifying information and that led to the identification of the hackers or their accomplices, the disclosure "might ultimately lead to political reprisals and human rights violations against those identified; actions which are inconsistent with New Zealand’s values as a constitutional democracy."

However, Justice Moore rejected each of Mega's arguments in turn and said the public interest in disclosing the information "outweighs the public interest in preventing harm to the hackers personally or Mega’s relationship with its users."

"To whatever extent a risk of harm actually exists, I am satisfied the imposition of appropriately worded protection orders can meet this risk," he said in the ruling. "The information in this case is not particularly sensitive but is plainly critical to the SDNY proceeding."

Mega's biggest shareholder is listed as Zhi Min Li of Beijing with 52.4 percent of the company.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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