mike40196 | 33 points | Dec 06 2016 21:45:41

[META] Thoughts on the mass account deletion

Most people are suggesting they're doing it by hashes. This is still possible but my backups on deleted stuff are still intact (5TB dump TV x264 and x265, 4k, some tv shows etc). Also, there are users who occasionally import copyrighted stuff but also keeps personal files (I don't personally know anyone but I'm betting they exist) and I don't think MEGA would risk screwing with that part of their user base.

I do think they are doing it by bots (or at least the majority of it) because I immediately checked a certain post that I have not backed up yet after I heard of the deleted accounts and it's still intact. (It's a link for a scifi show that is 100+GB but is only 480p for less than 10 seasons.) The post hid the bare code in a link which can be easily detected by MEGA users (if you know the basic structure of a MEGA link) but I don't think a basic link scraper would cover it.

I also think they're suspending all accounts associated to an email that is also associated to another account that has shared copyrighted stuff. I haven't shared anything, only between my own accounts, and I still got everything based on what I checked so far. This is more likely to be the main cause of the mass deletion. Only a handful of users regularly supply the links to this sub and I'm betting they are not creating a new email address for each MEGA account. Just close down a few emails from said regular uploaders and you would essentially take down the majority of the links here.

I don't suggest going private because sooner or later they will gain access to the sub and it will all be useless. All we can do is hide links better and more bot-proof and make a backup of shared files to another email so that it will be easier to get back up once the "sharing email" is nuked.

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