On the run megaupload

Diddy who appeared on the Megaupload. Born in the German city of Kiel, Dotcom -- who was then known as Schmitz -- grew up in northern Germany. As a child, he made copies of computer games to sell to his friends, and in the early days of the Internet, began hacking into computers via telephones, according to reputed German daily Die Welt. Schmitz has made no secret of his controversial past as a cyber-raider, hacking into computer networks at NASA, the Pentagon and at least one major bank.

As the hacker pioneer generation came of age, so did Schmitz. After being convicted of computer hacking in , he made a fortune providing computer security consulting and venture capital investment via the firm Kimvestor. According to German magazine Der Spiegel, Schmitz once boasted he would become one of the richest men in the world. How was he so sure? Schmitz, who also called himself Kimble after the wrongly convicted doctor-on-the-run in the film "The Fugitive," became well known for his lavish lifestyle as much as his computer skills.

He briefly became a fixture in Germany's nouveau riche party scene and made his own film, shot with a hand-held camera, Kimble Goes Monaco. The hulking Schmitz -- reportedly two meters tall and weighing more than kg -- was often shown in Germany's tabloid press with fast cars and a model on his arm. Schmitz's website at one point featured photographs of him racing cars, shooting an assault rifle and flying around the world in his private jet on lavish vacations.

A documentary about the outlaw Gumball road race of by German TV station RTL filmed Schmitz driving the Russian leg of the rally in excess of kph mph in a horsepower Mercedes sedan, and then laughing when an opponent is pulled over by police in Finland.

But in , he was convicted in what was then the largest insider-trading case in German history. Prosecutors said Schmitz bought shares in an online business and drove up the share price by announcing plans to invest millions to rescue the company from insolvency.

After selling his shares for a profit, he fled to Thailand, was arrested and deported. After his conviction, Schmitz disappeared from public view, reappearing a couple of years ago in New Zealand, having legally changed his name to Dotcom. The leased hectare property, set in rolling hills northwest of Auckland, is one of the largest and most expensive in the country, featuring manicured lawns, fountains, pools, palm-lined paths and extensive security.

The U. Created in , Megaupload was the 72nd-most-visited site on the Web during the past three months and has peaked as high as No. The site offered what's called "one-click hosting," letting users upload anything on their hard drive or in cloud storage to the Web.

The service gives users a URL that can then be shared with others -- often on discreet online message boards or social networks -- letting them access the file as well.

MegaVideo was the site's video service, letting even nonmembers view more than an hour of video at a time on the site, and MegaPix was a photo storage and sharing site in the mold of Flickr or Photobucket. People who paid for a premium account on the site were able to upload and download larger files. The blog TechCrunch has posted photos of seized assets , including the cars and a large house in New Zealand, in case you're interested. Publicly, at least, the site frowned on illegal uploads.

It featured a tool to report "abuse," gave copyright holders the ability to hunt for illegal content and registered with the U. The site's owners have denied any wrongdoing in regard to copyright violation, and their attorney has said the site was wrongly shut down before its owners were allowed to address the charges against them.

But the Justice Department says the anti-theft efforts were a facade -- that Megaupload's employees knew they were enabling piracy and made the site difficult for outsiders to search for illegal material. But others cited more legitimate uses, with some saying they've lost legitimate content, not to mention money, after the government crackdown.

He didn't lose them, but now he's gotten nothing in return for his payment, he said. Developers of open-source Linux and Homebrew software said they used it to upload projects they were working on together. Musicians, as well, said they stored songs for collaborative projects there.

One user said she used it for sharing large zip files of photographs that were too unwieldy to send via e-mail. The charges come at a time when online piracy is a hot topic.