Dotcom who is he

Kim Dotcom loses extradition case. Megaupload sharing site shut down. Image source, Getty Images. Mr Dotcom, born Kim Schmitz, argues he is not responsible for content people shared on his site.

Image source, KimDotcom. Timeline of Kim Dotcom's case. Image source, Reuters. In , Dotcom founded file-sharing website Megaupload. Dotcom was granted residency in New Zealand in He has been living in Auckland since then. In the early s, Schmitz used a little hacker cred and the growing paranoia over the powers of computer hackers and phreakers to launch a media-powered cybersecurity career. He got his first shot at media stardom in , when he was interviewed by the German press and then featured in a December Forbes article on the "computer hacker crime wave.

While Citi was hacked in , it was by a group of Russian hackers—and they certainly didn't donate the money to charity. There's no record to substantiate most of this; perhaps some of it is true. What he did do was steal phone calling card codes and conduct a premium number fraud similar to the recent rash of Filipino phreaking frauds.

He bought stolen phone card account information from American hackers. Schmitz was also playing pirate in other ways. Andreas Bogk, a member of the Chaos Computer Club, recently told the Wall Street Journal that Schmitz set up a computer system for the uploading and downloading of pirated PC software, charging people for access.

Schmitz exposed the scheme in an interview with a German television news program, and it was subsequently shut down by Deutsche Telekom. Schmitz's efforts to branch into the "legit" world of security consulting with his security company Data Protect initially backfired by exposing his real identity—and by allowing it to be connected to his hacker credentials. In March of , he was arrested by police for trafficking in stolen phone calling card numbers.

He was held in custody for a month, then arrested again on additional hacking charges shortly afterward — and again released. In , he was convicted of 11 counts of computer fraud, 10 counts of data espionage, and an assortment of other charges. He received a two-year suspended sentence—because, at just 20, he was declared "under age" at the time the crimes were committed.

But Schmitz used the notoriety to boost his security business. He soon landed a security contract for Data Protect with the airline Lufthansa by demonstrating an apparent security vulnerability—though according to claims by others in the German hacking community , his connection to the airline was thanks to collaboration with an insider there, and to the hacking skills of an accomplice. The influx of cash began to fuel Schmitz's fantasy fulfillment engine, funding his love of fast cars and outrageous antics.

He promoted his new bad-boy rich hacker genius image through a bizarre Flash movie called Kimble, Special Agent , in which his cartoon alter-ego drives a "Megacar" and then a "Megaboat" before breaking into Bill Gates' compound and riddling the wall behind Gates with a machine gun spelling out "Linux" with bullet holes. The cartoon was the first public demonstration of Schmitz's obsession with all things Mega. A year after the slap on the wrist, Schmitz shifted his focus from phone fraud to Internet start-ups.

Almost from the beginning, he made an effort to portray himself as someone who was Germany's answer to Silicon Valley — even if he was closer to Pets.

His first effort tied together two of the great loves of his life: the Internet and expensive cars. Schmitz and Data Protect led the development of a real Megacar , an Internet-connected luxury car system with its own Pentium III Windows NT on-board computer, router, multi-camera video conferencing system, and inch display. To get the broadband bandwidth required, the car had 16 multiplexed GSM cellular connections. While it went nowhere, the press it received helped raise the profile of Data Protect—and of Schmitz.

Schmitz was also making other efforts to create his persona. In , according to New Zealand's Investigate magazine PDF , he was spotted at the airport in Munich getting his picture taken inside parked airplanes, which he then used to suggest that he owned them. Flush with at least some cash, Schmitz was quick to burn some of it by waving his own particular brand of freak flag. He hired a German centerfold, a collection of other actors, a film crew, and fast car aficionados for a self-produced film called Kimble Goes Monaco — a road movie about a lavish trip to Monaco, including a cruise on a rented yacht.

The movie was punctuated with Schmitz playing with expensive toys, and featured a bizarre Bill-Gates-is-spying-on-me subplot. View Iframe URL. The image Schmitz was selling was embraced by the press, as a Guardian report on his "rags to riches" tale shows:. The 6'4", stone giant has since divided his time between growing Kimvestor - which he values at m euros - and spending his money on top models, fast cars and expensive boats.

He now owns a Challenger jet, a helicopter, several sports cars and a yacht. First, there was LetsBuyIt.

In January , as the dot-com crash was starting to gain momentum, LetsBuyIt was close to bankruptcy. Schmitz bought , euros in the company's shares — and then announced he was preparing to invest an additional 50 million Euros.

But it also ruled that the Court of Appeal had made an error in dismissing judicial review requests from Dotcom, and granted him the right to continue with them. This decision effectively grants Dotcom the right to appeal, meaning this legal battle is set to continue. This is significant and means that nothing further can happen until the further required hearings take place.