Mega-man: The fast, fabulous, and fraudulent life of Kim Dotcom

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/mega-man-the-bizarre-rise-and-sudden-downfall-of-kim-dotcom.ars?

by llambda • 14 years ago

184 89 14 years ago

rdl• 14 years ago

What amazes me about Kimble is that it's not 100% fake; he did hype things up by a large factor (renting private jets and putting stickers on them for photos, vs. owning them outright as he claimed), but still, there was real revenue from some (illegitimate or fraudulent) sources.

sachingulaya• 14 years ago

A true example of how ugly the 'fake it til you make it' mantra can be.

rorrr• 14 years ago

He still comes off as a douche with a huge inferiority complex, trying too hard to impress people.

hessenwolf• 14 years ago

I'm not going to be the one to throw the first stone for that.

mpclark2• 14 years ago

I wonder if it is possible for anyone to make a fast profit once they cross to the other side of the legal/illegal line, or if one has to be just as skilful as a successful legitimate businessperson to do it...

zmanji• 14 years ago

This honestly looks like the plot of a movie.

mdonahoe• 14 years ago

It reminds me of Lord of War http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399295/

zmonkeyz• 14 years ago

Lord of the Onion Rings

felixfurtak• 14 years ago

This film should be made. Perhaps he could sell the movie rights to those guys over in Hollywood.

neotorama• 14 years ago

72 min movie.

Jun8• 14 years ago

I found his story more sad than funny, this guy clearly had some inadequacy issues. Evidently he was a hacker of some ability; had he stayed that way today he could have been leading a medium sized legit startup perhaps.

But what's even sadder is the cavalier attitude Germany has shown towards him: after his first set of crimes, during the extradition from Thailand he should have got a more severe punishment it seems (what good that would have served with a guy like that is another question altogether). Insider trading was not a crime until 1995? It was banned around 1930s in the US I think.

moe• 14 years ago

Evidently he was a hacker of some ability

I was actually (digitally) in touch with kimble and his BBS in my own BBS-days and feel a need to set straight that, to my knowledge, he was never very tech-savvy, and never a "hacker" by any standard. Instead he quickly made a name for himself for being a full-on fraudster of the sociopath kind.

Here's a (german) article that sheds some light on his earliest endeavours:

http://www.gulli.com/news/12565-nachruf-guenter-freiherr-von...

The gist is:

Kimble started out by running a warez-bbs and dealing calling cards (which was quite common back in that day). Things turned nasty when his BBS got busted. He did not only cooperate with the cops but there-after partnered with an infamous german lawyer to set up traps for other BBS operators and sell them (literally) to the authorities. This went on for years in an organized fashion. From all accounts that I've heard he was not strong-armed into it but rather made money that way and even bragged about it.

From there I think the ars article is mostly correct. But I wouldn't like to see him get away with his self-proclaimed "hacker"-image.

In the german BBS-scene of the 90s the hate for him was unrivaled. There were quite a few graphic kimble-related ascii-banners on some post-login screens.

nikcub• 14 years ago

I can confirm this. I was part of a few groups back in the 90s and was there when Kimble first showed up. He shot up in notoriety rapidly, but we figured him out as not having any skills pretty quickly.

He would take 'hacks' from others and then claim them in the media for himself. The first time he did this with one of the groups was when he went to the media with the NASA hack. What happen was somebody on the channel had dumped shell accounts on a few jpl.nasa.gov boxes, and a day later the story was in the media that Kimble had done it.

I then watched him get kicked from other groups when he would do the same thing - either claiming hacks as his own or taking exploits, ripping out the attribution and putting his own name in.

He became a subject of derision with these groups so he then setup his own group and bought in some fans - claiming he was going to 'hack' all of us. Nothing ended up happening.

There is truth to most of his claims - for eg. the 'military secrets' claim comes from a hack where some Indian and Iraqi military networks where hacked and documents leaked. Around 20 people on IRC had access to them, and Kimble claimed that one as well (one of the other guys ended up getting arrested for it because he tried to sell the documents to an undercover agent).

Funnily the media attention that Kimble bought to himself bought a lot of attention to Undernet and the groups that were on there at the time. It ended up driving us to private SIRC servers and renaming most of the groups as a large number of newbies (and probably federal agents) flooded onto the servers and tried to gain access to the group channels.

A couple of years later he re-appeared with his security company and then racing videos. We would be in conflict with him continuously - he would email us with taunts and we would return them. The website of his security company was defaced numerous times and his home directory dumped. He then tried to call a 'truce' and to hire a few of us, I was on a few conference calls that Kimble was on.

I then bumped into him again a little later on, after he started MegaUpload. I wasn't surprised at all that he was behind the site. What we did back then and with him was a bit childish and we grew out of it - but Kimble definitely isn't a hacker in that old regard. He does have skills in promoting himself and getting people to believe in his ideas.

Radim• 14 years ago

Kimble was also a notorious quake 2 botter (cheater), back in the day. He ruined online quake play for many Germans and was as much of a selfish cunt as this article suggests.

A sad reminder that the "online persona" will often say more about you than one is willing to admit.

skystorm• 14 years ago

Thanks for that link, I had completely forgotten about the "Freiherr". Blast from the past...

static_cast• 14 years ago

I remember around 2001 - when he started his digital "Jihad" against Bin Laden - his web server was hacked several times with a public FreeBSD telnetd remote root exploit.

I won't deny that you have to give him some respect for being able to pull all these stunts and acquiring the money from investors, however as it seems most if not all projects where at least partly illegal.

chalst• 14 years ago

Insider trading was not a crime until 1995?

Capital allocation in Germany revolves around raising money for the Mittelstand, which are medium-sized business where the executives usually own more than half the business, equity investors are connected to the company, and it is only the debt investors who have distance from the company.

There are bigger companies in Germany, but liquid equity is still not as important to the Germany economy as it is in the US, so it should not be surprising that the needs of non-insider equity holders has not been as important in Germany.

It makes me wonder what the start-up scene here in Germany is really hoping for: I don't see Germany having a straightforward "young IPO" market any time soon.

There was an Economist article a couple of months back that might be interesting: http://www.economist.com/node/21535175

mjwalshe• 14 years ago

That's interesting I had not come across that negative aspect of the German system before.

Maybe that's why all the "names" on the German internet scene are so "dodgy" with limited share holder protection the is much less incentive for normal start ups. You just get the edgy barrow boy types - all the real engineers want to go an design the next 3/4 light sub system for Audi

celticninja4• 14 years ago

It was banned in the US (for everyone except your politicians) but that doesnt mean everyone else has to have the same laws as you. You still have the death penalty, the rest of the developed world considers it barbaric, I dont see you questioning why Germany dont have the death penalty.

kahawe3• 14 years ago

> Evidently he was a hacker of some ability;

That is the really important part: NO, he never was. He was always all smoke and mirrors, show and PR stunts. And from his BBS days all the way to megaupload, he has never done anything but shady, borderline-illegal or downright criminal activities.

donaldc• 14 years ago

I'm amazed he was convicted/pled guilty three separate times in Germany and yet never had to do any prison time. After going easy on him twice didn't work, you'd think they'd want to try something else.

celticninja4• 14 years ago

Not every crime requires a prison sentence. One of those crimes was insider trading, do you know that is also illegal in the United States too, with the exception of it being carried out by US Politicians. Perhaps get your own house in order before you start complaining about the legal systems of other countries.

adestefan3• 14 years ago

There have been many people in the US that have gone to prison for insider trading. Martha Stewart is probably the most famous.

fan• 14 years ago

I disagree that a citizen of one country cannot complain about the actions of another country if his/her own country has some (perhaps worse) violations as well.

Applying this logic would mean that no one, say, in the 1980s Soviet Union had anything insightful to say about political oppression in the UK.

shin_lao2• 14 years ago

He was not physically violent with another human being, it is therefore useless to physically isolate him.

T-zex• 14 years ago

Are you implying that thieves should not go to jail?

kahawe3• 14 years ago

On one or two of those times he got away for being a minor... and allegedly when they got him for phone card and credit card fraud, they might have offered him a deal and he snitched on and betrayed the whole scene that actually built him up first.

See also comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3513015

Toddward• 14 years ago

I have to say - living a life that was a constant misrepresentation of itself must have been exhausting.

joeblau• 14 years ago

I remember going to his websites back when I was in college. I was amazed at the things that he had in flash. He had the trailing pointer, the 3D vector text rotating for MonkeyBank site and his Kimble.org site was amazing at the time. I wanted to be Kim, but at the time I had no idea what he did. Now I realize that he didn't have any idea what he was doing either :).

webwanderings2• 14 years ago

What's the point of glorifying such people who are no role models for the world?

cluda01• 14 years ago

"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning." - Catherine Aird

Best served with a dose of parenting.

ramblerman• 14 years ago

Is the article glorifying the truth? Or does a part of us find some of his jetset, bikini clad model, high roller life glorious?

Your certainly correct he is no role model, but as long as making a million bucks is the ideal of a good life, the problem goes deeper than this one man.

webwanderings2• 14 years ago

People's jetseting ambitions are no big deal, the Hollywood types portray lot worse. But the tech-media seems to be fascinated by this guy's choices in living his life, perhaps tech-media is finding an opening for the first time to compete with the Hollywood media? No wonder there is a clash between the two industries.

veb• 14 years ago

As a New Zealander, I'm not quite sure what to think. I really don't think he should be extradited to the United States, rather his trial be held here.

(I believe justice will be served more fairly here... no $250,000 per download crap - but that's just my opinion)

te_chris• 14 years ago

As a fellow Kiwi I know what you mean. I don't want him to be extradited and feel the precedent of cooperation on something like copyright is a betrayal of our sovereignty, but at the same time, there's so much detail to this case and there is so much bullshit swirling that a (lengthy) trip to the supreme court in the US would seem to be worth the risk if it can establish some precedent which moderates the ever-strangling enforcement of IP legislation at the moment.

jacques_chester• 14 years ago

Extradition is not a violation of sovereignty; it's an affirmation of sovereignty. The US has to politely ask for the accused to be turned over and the NZ courts will decide whether the request is legally valid under New Zealand law.

ErrantX• 14 years ago

I'm on holiday here at the moment (lovely country, btw? :)) and it was nice to see that reaction on the news and radio. It's similar to the UK reaction to the kid the US started extradition against a few weeks ago.

It was interesting to see it "on the ground" as it were - I had not idea he was NZ based.

muyuu3• 14 years ago

From the outside, the whole process looks faulty and even corrupt. Regardless of how guilty a man can look or be made look, there are rights you cannot trample upon.

Looks like the US Grand Jury is trying to set an example, and it does so in their usual heavy-handed, cowboy fashion. Wilful copyright infringement (so far, alleged) is not a crime worth 50 years in the oven. As I read somewhere, killing Michael Jackson cannot be a 4y offence while allowing someone to put his songs for download is a 50y one. Not in a civilised country like New Zealand.

How is seizing his property even legal before trial? not talking about servers, but cars, houses, etc. I could go on for a long time because the list is long, but to sum it up it looks like they are doing their best to damage the guy as much as possible before trial.

RobAtticus• 14 years ago

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it doesn't seem that farfetched to me for authorities to seize someone's assets when they are arrested for allegedly participating in a criminal conspiracy.

mahyarm4• 14 years ago

I really don't understand why the really rich with personal cooks let themselves stay fat. This guy could of have bacon and eggs for breakfast everyday with a ketogenic diet, have all of his nutrients and portions tracked and lost weight with zero effort very quickly but he get's his private cook to cook obvious crap for him all the time.

hyperbovine• 14 years ago

I'm looking at a picture of this guy standing in front of his ludicrously large private yacht in Monaco, with a scantily-clad swimsuit model frolicking in the surf at his feet.

Sorry, why were we losing weight again?

InclinedPlane3• 14 years ago

Indeed. People decide to lose weight due to some motivation, and that depends upon their chosen lifestyle. A lot of people want to lose weight in order to be more attractive to the opposite sex, but that is somewhat moot if you are satisfied with being "attractive" due to wealth or other factors. Other folks desire to be in shape for entirely different reasons, but Mr. Dotcom probably didn't share those reasons.

firefoxman1• 14 years ago

That's such a good point. Haha why should he care?

cschep• 14 years ago

Losing 20 lbs. changed how I feel everyday in such a positive way.. I can't even imagine 100! And like the poster said, you can eat amazing food and lose weight.

mahyarm4• 14 years ago

'Cause he hired that model. And loosing weight has a lot of benefits other than just the ladies too.

DrJokepu2• 14 years ago

Obesity can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, heart disease and shortened life expectancy. Not to mention psychological problems such as low self-esteem.

nachteilig2• 14 years ago

Well, he rented that yacht. And maybe part of the reason he feels the needs to do those things is because he has lower self-esteem due to his weight?

itmag2• 14 years ago

Yeah.

If I was super rich like that, I wouldn't spend it on cars and yachts. I would spend it on coaches, tutors, trainers, personal chefs, training courses, seminars, gym equipment, stuff like that. Use the money improve myself, since that's the only true wealth there is anyway (that and relationships).

shin_lao2• 14 years ago

You don't know what it's like to have one million dollar until you have one million dollar.

icebraining• 14 years ago

Others would say that would be a terrible waste of money that could be used to improve e.g. poor kids' lives. There's no such thing as true wealth, only opinions.

mahyarm4• 14 years ago

The guy already had a personal chef. Which makes it even more silly. Probably used trainers, tutors, etc once in a while too and had a gym in his house he never used.

brown9-22• 14 years ago

You're confused as to why a scammer doesn't exhibit smart long-term planning?

mahyarm4• 14 years ago

It's not even long term! He just has to impulsively tell his cook to do it and eat whatever he gives him on automatic. I'd be sooooo happy if I could have diet cook making all my meals like that for something that wasn't %20 of my wage.

baby• 14 years ago

> the No. 1 player worldwide in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer.

I smell so much bullshit in this. How can you be number 1 when matches are 5 vs 5?

edit: Okay it's on Xbox live (hahahahaha), on FFA (hahahahaha) and for a few minutes at most. This is just a big joke, the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l...!

edit2: I know it's a very tiny part of the article, but I just bugged me that you could write something like "Kim is also the number 1 player in Call of Duty", it's just plain false and sensationalism.

lawnchair_larry• 14 years ago

No, that claim is from his current standing on all-time leaderboards.

Not saying it is legitimately held, nor do I care, but ars wasn't being false or sensational.

PaulAnunda• 14 years ago

I wonder if the outcome would've been different if he were to have kept a much lower profile and didn't seemingly thumb his nose at those who were seeking his downfall

ck2• 14 years ago

Did he rape, kill or physically assault any American citizen? Was he selling drugs to children?

No? Well then we had no right to extradite him.

Law enforcement is created by society to protect PEOPLE not corporations.

badclient• 14 years ago

Law enforcement is created by society to protect PEOPLE not corporations.

So, are you arguing that corporations should not be protected or that law should protect him or both?

muyuu3• 14 years ago

Not overriding other countries' legal systems.

nodata• 14 years ago

Corporations count as people don't they?

runn1ng2• 14 years ago

He stole other people's work and made business out of it. You are not magically allowed to steal* from corporations.

*I personally don't classify downloading other people's work as stealing, but building a huge business from it is totally different matter.

And it's totally not the point of the article, anyway.

gameshot911• 14 years ago

>I personally don't classify downloading other people's work as stealing, but building a huge business from it is totally different matter.

You should though, because the two are just different shades of the same color. Downloading other people's work = benefiting from their work without their permission. Building a huge business = benefiting from their work without their permission on a larger scale.

radu_floricica• 14 years ago

Well, you'd have a point if he actually did it. But he didn't, did he? He just made a piece of software that allowed other people to share work without profiting from it. Copyrighted and uncopyrighted.

stef25• 14 years ago

He was also a participant in, and won once, the Gumball Rally. He made plans to start his own rally ("Ultimate Rally") and got lots of people excited. He was looking for stewards to assist in the race, they were asked to pay quite a serious sum to get this non paying role in the event. It never happend and people may have lost money on it by entry tickets not getting refunded; I know because I communicated with him on this issue.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/30/kimble_rally/

Post 9/11 he also claimed to have the details of Bin Laden's bank accounts in Sudan without offering a shred of evidence

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/01/18/bin_laden_hackmeiste...

clone1018• 14 years ago

Bahahaha, more and more I read into this story, the more I realize, this guy lived a more exciting life then more then 90% of us, even if he's going to jail.

trtwn• 14 years ago

Legends may sleep, but they never die.

kahawe3• 14 years ago

Working in Germany, the really sad part for me is seeing how TÜV and Lufthansa, of all companies, blindly bought into his shenanigans. This should tell you how absolutely clueless people were about all things IT, Internet and PC back then.

westicle• 14 years ago

Dotcom is being extradited for, inter alia, copyright crimes.

While reading the article, did anyone else wonder whether Ars got the permission of the rightsholders to the images hosted on kimble.com?

Maybe Kim should commence proceedings to have Sean Gallagher extradited for copyright infringement.

throwaway1970• 14 years ago

Many of the articles about Kim Schmitz / Dotcom / Kimble quickly brush over the calling card fraud in 1994. I think it is an important part of the story.

For those of you not familiar with the early 90's phreaking scene, calling card fraud came to the fore as a timely replacement to blueboxing (which the telcos had recently killed off). Calling cards also had a inherent transferable value, so they had the added attraction that you could use them as a means of barter.

A large number of people were busted at the same time (late 1994)(worldwide) for trading calling card numbers that cost MCI, GTE and AT&T millions in the early 90's. I've heard numbers up to $50 million quoted as combined losses. My guess is that Kimble has been on the US Secret Service watch/hit list since 1994 when they failed to have him extradited to the US to face the calling card fraud (conspiracy) charges.

Many of those busted in the USA went to prison. James Lay was the guy that wrote the software to intercept the card numbers at the switch level and then went on to sell on an estimated 60,000 card numbers through a worldwide network of dealers. I think Kimble was one of those card dealers in Germany.

A large number of the accused were barely 18 years old when they were busted and US extradition requests were denied due to their age. The Secret Service busts were well organised and had to be executed and coordinated quickly worldwide (no mean feat). This took a great deal of negotiation with foreign governments and cost a great deal of effort and money. They then had to watch as one by one those accused abroad were given hand slaps, charges were dropped, deals were done, and court cases collapsed or never even made it as far as a court room. That must have been very frustrating after all of that effort.

Many of those busted were thought to have been 'turned'. It was also reported that Kimble 'put himself forward' and allegedly 'offered' to help crack a pirate software BBS group.

Also worth noting is that many of the cards that came into Europe went directly east to the mafias in those new border countries that had previously been the other side of the iron curtain before the Berlin wall fell. Being in Germany (at this time being a EU external border country) meant that Kimble may well have had some contacts in those countries that the BND (German Federal Intelligence Service) might have been very interested in.

tl;dr The Secret Service never forgets!

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+ring+leader.-a019474647 http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/05/business/calling-card-frau... http://articles.latimes.com/1994-11-01/business/fi-57359_1_b... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_enlargement_of_the_Europea... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU_Enlargement_2004.png

Mega-man: The fast, fabulous, and fraudulent life of Kim Dotcom

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