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conspiracy theories and showed the world it had no secrets.

Dotcom had already seen this future. Documents released through the court process had combined with his uncanny foresight to reveal the extent of the USA's intrusion.

“My eyes are wide open,” he said. “I have such a big horizon now about what's going in the world and with the US government and how much data these guys are actually capturing and what kind of laws they have in place now in the US.”

At the time, those around Dotcom heard him describing spy networks which seemed more the realm of conspiracy theorists. Then revelations of the GCSB emerged, and Dotcom began talking of a spying network covering the globe. “We were laughing at Kim Dotcom,” says Ortmann. “He's saying there is an American spy cloud and everything is stored there that you do on the internet. We were not really very convinced.”

“I did my homework,” says Dotcom, “and found out how much data that traverses through US networks is being captured and I felt like really strong about encryption. They are spending billions of dollars into their own data centre and network infrastructures to have this massive machine that captures everything. Every submarine cable that lands in the US is basically fully mirrored, every content that goes through, every packet that goes through . . .”

“Once you understand that, you realise we are already living in this vision from (George) Orwell and there is no privacy any more. The US government over the past few years, since the September 11 attacks, has managed to take over the complete internet and all the data on it, without people having any real understanding of it.”

“I didn't realise until all this happened to us how much surveillance is already happening. Every iPhone has a back door, every Windows operating system has a back door. These guys can look into anybody's life and you wouldn't even know.”

THE SCOPE of Dotcom's vision is shown through Mega. Online start-ups come and go around the world. The small New Zealand market is filled with businesses working to find a niche which they can develop into a global success story. Success comes through capturing enough narrow markets internationally to turn a profit.

Dotcom, in contrast, only ever developed Mega with the world in mind. And there was nothing “niche” about his product — he only ever wanted the world.

“I'm always pushing my team by giving them objectives and

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