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This devices are used by the Police and other entities to create complete copies of confiscated computers and work on them without touching the original PC/Mac/Amiga/whatever. It can of course also be used for backup.

2gb/min isn't that fast.

Standalone devices like the Logicube Talon copy twice as fast. They also hash the drives and store audit trails to a CF card.

I can see the potential benefit to creating 3 mirrored drives at once, but it is extremely limited.

-R

FUCKING ASSHOLES!

How long before Blackberries and other PDAs befall this same bs?

This ought to or might ramp up sales of Dell Latitudes. (I dunno about Inspirons and Precisions...). With the Latitude, it's easy to leave out two screws and slide out and swap the hard drives out (compared to many other l/ts that require removing the keyboards or opening up the chassis...). Just buy an extra caddy from Dell, configure a PERMANENTLY-dedicated disk for the border nazis and then when you're done with your main disk, slip in the just-for-the-border-nazis disk and when they need a boot up, boot it up. If you're brazen, have the boot up image say something nasty.... (Be SURE to isolate the other disk. If these rent-a-dummies DO confiscate it, hopefully they don't thing to rummage your pockets.) This just underscores that in computer THEFT (by burglar with a mission or agent with a warrant), it's NOT the hardware so much as the DATA and the DISK you care about.

But, that just opens up the REAL question: If this is a government action (vice a border agent action) is it the LAPTOP or the HARD DRIVE the government wants? If they're taking specific hardware, it's probably because they're PROFILING their marks, maybe looking for suspicious devices that they thing held or will hold a bomb. Maybe in reality, only devices with offending MAC addresses are targeted in some cases. Still, in this case you better back up your main disk and expect to lose it with the JFTBN disk. They'll just go into your purse or pocket and demand you surrender it, too. So, I suspect they are after data, not laptops. Or, the guards want the laptops and the agencies want the hard drives...

Now that this scenario is posited, they may as well just electronically confiscate a COPY of the disk using:

http://www.logicube.com/markets/forensics.asp

or

http://www.newfreedownloads.com/Windows-Utilities/ Backup/Acronis-True-Image-Corporate-Workstation.ht ml

and STOP STEALING PEOPLE'S HARDWARE and risking the WRATH of the populace.

I mean, in this day and age, short of a concern of EVERY hard disk and machine being digitally booby-trapped, there is no sane reason for taking people's hardware when for $1,500 on a Logicube, amortized across the 3,000 or 4,000 machines they might have warrants to sieze and search, they minimize the risk of SHEER outrage on the part of visitors, citizens and others. But of course they won't do this shit to diplomats, because they've got immunity. I've said before, and I'll say again: You can, with a warrant, CLONE my disk and copy my papers (If you bring a hand/wand scanner), but if you TAKE my shit, you better lock my ass up FOREVER and throw away the key cuz as long as I am mobile and able... err, umm, better not say that again.... sheesh...

How can I get diplomatic immunity from another country so as to not be searched and screwed with? How can we ALL do it? Oh, we can't.

I suspect next that in-flight nationality & customs declaration forms will have a section for passengers to, "under penalty of perjury, a $100,000 fine and imprisonment up to 15 years affirm/swear/attest that they did not encrypt, digitally booby-trap, or erase their disks nor switch them out with nor secretly give them to other passengers in an attempt to avoid a hard-drive road-block...."

Well, if this becomes a REAL problem and keeps up, I imagine concerned companies will forbid employees' taking company laptops overseas, will force them to rent or go with disposable laptops, and installing self-destructing hard drives which are used ONLY for VPN authentication/access/work and then disposal before leaving a foreign country. Individuals might follow suit.

More crap for the people to get worked up over (if it gets out of hand)...

We used one of these at the last place I worked. Plug the drive into the unit using an external swappable bay, and you're set. Does 7 pass DoD standard wipes, and is hella fast in doing them.

Also great for doing direct data copies of an exsisting drive for backup.

Logicube Forensics' products do the trick for getting a copy of the drive. We use a Forensic MD5 to copy the source without changing it, and then an OmniClone to dupe the destination drive to send out to be analyzed by experts who hold up in court. Most of the experts use one of their own software packages. Commercially: Encase, FTK and ILook are all pretty good.

Marketing mumbo-jumbo from their site: "Logicube is the world leader in hard drive duplication, back up and computer forensics systems. Our hard drive duplicators offer hardware solutions for copying hard drives, data recovery, and disaster recovery."

Logicube Forensics' products do the trick for getting a copy of the drive. We use a Forensic MD5 to copy the source without changing it, and then an OmniClone to dupe the destination drive to send out to be analyzed by experts who hold up in court. Most of the experts use one of their own software packages. Commercially: Encase, FTK and ILook are all pretty good.

Marketing mumbo-jumbo from their site: "Logicube is the world leader in hard drive duplication, back up and computer forensics systems. Our hard drive duplicators offer hardware solutions for copying hard drives, data recovery, and disaster recovery."

...or am I just missing something here?

You're missing lots.

Ok, so it's faster to have to unplug all of the servers, carry them out of the building, put them on a truck, drive them several (dozens?) of miles, unload them from the truck...[snip]

There is no specific information on what crime (if any) was commited, other than the fact that IRC was involved. The FBI has an obligation to preserve the evidence and analyze it in a timely manner. Preserving the evidence does not mean sitting at the console browsing hundreds of directories looking for the relevent material (and possibly stomping all over evidence, i.e. MAC times, etc.).

If a forensic imageis needed, and the FBI is ready with mobile imaging solutions (or something similar), but the company is not helpful in locating the volume to be imaged (or even logically copied), then the agents on site might very well decide that seizing all the suspect hardware is in fact more efficient. The labs have far more imaging capabilities on faster equipment.

Remember that this is a criminal investigation of some sort. The evidence (especially computer based) is volatile both with regard to data and leads that can evaporate very quickly two or three hops back (suspect tracing). The FBI cannot sit around, in many cases, waiting for sysadmins to track down which server/volume is the one the containing the proported evidence. Language covering this sort of eventuality is covered in most computer search warrants, for good reason.

We use an OmniClone HDD Duplicator from Logicube. Never fails. Just make sure you buy the NTFS option if you use Winblowz. We can burn 5 drives at once loaded with the OS and all user apps in under 7 mins. Our staff delivered 40 new PC to the end users in under one week. With software products it would take you that amount of time to get a call back from the tech support ppl as to why the copies are continually corrupt.

We use an OmniClone HDD Duplicator from Logicube. Never fails. Just make sure you buy the NTFS option if you use Winblowz. We can burn 5 drives at once loaded with the OS and all user apps in under 7 mins. Our staff delivered 40 new PC to the end users in under one week. With software products it would take you that amount of time to get a call back from the tech support ppl as to why the copies are continually corrupt.

Microsoft's policy with duping/copying is FUCKING INANE. I've switched PCI cards in my home PC only to have it flip out and require a repair install of XP on top of everything. It's just plain stupid. That poor Windows XP activation operator woman at midnight a few Saturdays ago...she got a piece of my mind.