Kim Dotcom's new sharing website Mega got a little closer to resembling its old, closed-down version, Megaupload on Wednesday. Anonymous users launched a search engine that indexes files uploaded on the new sharing service, potentially making it easier to find copyright-protected material.
On Thursday, less than 24 hours after the first news reports of the existence of the third-party engine surfaced, Dotcom blocked it. The engine, called Mega-Search.me, is not available anymore. A message in French on its home page reads (according to a Google Translate translation): "Due to a script developed by Mega to delete all files indexed in Mega-search, the engine is temporarily unavailable. A solution to overcome this problem will be made shortly."
The files on Mega are encrypted so the engine relied on a very simple technique to index files: crowdsourcing. Users were encouraged to submit links and names of the files they had on their Mega clouds. Once you found what you were looking for, you could transfer the file to your own account or download it directly.
It's unclear who made the site, although all signs point to French-speaking people. According toWHOIS, the Internet equivalent of White Pages, the site was registered on Jan. 20, the same day of Mega's launch. Reports of its existence first surfaced on Wednesday and Mega's response came roughly less than a day after the news came out.
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