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Rackspace, Indymedia, and the FBI
chill writes "Remember when Indymedia hard drives were seized as part of an international 'criminal terrorism investigation'? Rackspace pulled the whole hard drive and shut down a dozen websites, and the Slashdot community cried 'Say it ain't so!'
It ain't so.
The documents have been unsealed and CNet is reporting that Rackspace made a mistake. The government wanted only copies of logs, not entire hard drives. It seems the week of downtime wasn't really necessary. Oops!"
that's fanatical support alright!
for a police state!
Thats a pretty large mistake.
Ah, if it's only a mistake than it's no problem.
After all, everybody makes mistakes from time to time...
I guess when the government asks someone to jump, no one bothers to ask how high. Some people just assume that jumping out the window is a correct response.
Rackspace, in their desire to stay on the good side of the law went far overboard in their zeal to help the police. This is a common theme in many cases.
The law specifically protects people from incriminating themselves and also from unreasonable search and seizure. It does not protect them from turning themselves into the authorities, nor does it protect them from others doing it for them.
You would like to think that companies would consult with their lawyers that could advise them on their legal rights and responsibilities before they took drastic, unnecessary steps like turning a lot of personal/private documentation over to the police.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Rackspace should pull this site for terrorizing slashdot.
The government wanted only copies of logs, not entire hard drives. It seems the week of downtime wasn't really necessary. Oops!
Yes! But they got a lot of porn. Which is not SO bad.
On the corporate side, they cooperate fully and aggressively with law enforcement agencies.
On the political side their stunt made a pretty big impact, one that's bigger than the retraction, on B16 months after the fact is going to make.
Some of their more discriminating customers might hold it against them, but I'd bet the profit out weighs the loss.
I guess it's part of their "fanatical support for law-agencies"-campaign
Harald
Anything about why they wanted those log files? What did I miss?
Sleep is futile.
direct link to the article
I wonder how believers of that tired incorrect cliché will tie that in with this.
Surely the FBI were liberating imprisoned information from it's overbearing masters?
If they just decided to copy the disks so they would have had limitted downtime. Downtime=How long it takes for dd take to make a bit by bit copy of the drive depends on the size, use multiple machines to do one drive per machine, so it goes as fast as possible.
That would have made them make the jump of the previous posts and still have limitted impact.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
That's not the kinda mistake you can legally make. Somethnig big is about to happen.
Keep in mind that the PATRIOT ACT plays a part in the laws these days. For all we know, this was one of several warrents that went to rackspace. If any other was tied to PATRIOT ACT, it will prevents you from discussing or even mentioning them to anybody else. To do so, means hard prison time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Otherwise nobody would have known the FBI was harvesting log files, or am I wrong about that? Hopefully all ISP's when faced with sneaky orders like this will do the same. Regardless, the damage has been done, the FBI has their log files.. it's really too bad about the victims of this witchhunt.
Just think about it ....
You have 1,000s of customers with root on their own boxes. The FBI now wants the log files of customer 41231. Its going to take a tech at least 15 minutes (best possible case) to fetch the log files from this box - assuming that the log files that the FBI want are in their usual place. This is giving the tech enough time to log into the box, find them, and FTP them somewhere else.
Just imagine how long this could take if the customer has gone to some effort to make the log files difficult to find.
Looks like the ISPs didn't complain loud enough when these laws were introduced and they're now paying for it.
Or more so, the customers are paying for it.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
(From TFA: "A Rackspace employee mistakenly used the word 'hardware' to describe the contents of a federal order,")
...to give Rackspace a wide birth - other than their supporting SCO by buying into their phony 'Linux License' agreements...
Rackspace used to be a good provider, but they seem to have lost their way...
--
Tomas
It ain't so. Rackspace obviously lost their cool and dropped the ball. Don't blame it on the police.
When it's a pattern of behavior, it's not a mistake, but an MO. Judging by the majority of responses, it works, as most are excusing what happened.
Laugh all you want... My tinfoil hat just plain looks cool, OK?? You all are doomed anyway. <mutters> i'm choosing to believe the first story...
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" -Jesus (John 14:6)
Talking about dropping the ball: (from the EFF site)
the logs that the government requested didn't exist, so Rackspace should never have given the government anything at all.
Just what is going on here exactly?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
...Rackspace could be sued (successfully) for violations of the Data Protection Act as there was no lawful warrant for the data on the server (as it resides in the UK and the subpoena was server to rackspace in Texas).
Personally I hope rackspace get raked over the coals for this one to serve as an example to other ISP's that this kind of flagrant disregard for privacy and the laws of the land cannot go unpunished.
I am NaN
"[I] certify that packaged herewith is a true and correct copy of log files in relation to the creation and updating of the web spaces corresponding to the following URLs during the period from THIS PORTION OF THE DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REDACTED"
As the sysadmin of ahimsa (the seized servers), I'm wondering what he's certifying here. Our httpd.confs substituted "noip" for IP addresses in the logfiles. Like this:
Also, finding the location of the logfiles on the servers would have been as simple as a `locate access_log`...
-Jeff
Nice to see that some ISPs don't bend over at the first sight of a possible legal issue about one of their customers.
Oh wait, they did.
Yes information wants to be free, however when you physically remove the media you actually steal the information stored in it.
No one is saying I have the right to steal your notebook, but if you put it online, its ours.
[Rackspace] was compelled to produce a copy of the server owned and operated by Rackspace containing the data as outlined above. The compact disc provided herein is the true disc as provided by said entity.
"Produce a copy of the server"? Does that mean the whole system? Rackspace has said they turned over complete hard drives. The data certainly wouldn't have fit all on one CD (we're talking gigs of data on the servers). If the FBI just wanted log files, why did they take complete hard drives (which would have been around 6 drives or so)? The FBI certainly had the opportunity to look at all data on the hard drives. Do you think they did that or restricted themselves to a couple logfile lines? ;)
-Jeff
Jeez louise - it's a joke. Does the whole "FBI wanting to liberate enslaved information" thing not give the game away?
And for the record I'd read the phrase in full context previously, even before in was mentioned a few news items ago. Only a moron would take my origian post as something intended to be deathly serious. Unfortunately you've found yourself stepping up to the plate.
OH what the hell. Here's something else deadly serious for you to rant and rave about. "Google are teh ev1l!!!111 Micro$sux is my ghay lover!!!"
Feel free to berate me for my inability to grasp the global ramifications of the Google/Microsoft interations, and of course point out to me than an organisation cannot inherently be homosexual. Cheers.
No text.
Indymedia made the mistake by using Rackspace as a host. This happens to Indymedia once a year or so. .
http://arizona.indymedia.org/
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt
Unless you can see the part of the subpoena that they won't let you see, it is best to assume that you have been given no information at all.
From Secret Documents About Indymedia Server Disappearance Unsealed: "It cannot be determined from the unsealed documents whether or not the government informally pressured Rackspace to turn over the servers."
Certainly it seems that is what happened, that there was illegal activity on the part of the government. Otherwise you have to believe something like this:
U.S. government (Calmly): We just need some log files from you.
Rackspace: Oh wow!!! We will damage our reputation by giving you far more than you asked!!! Our customer's trust means nothing to us!
It is a better guess that someone at Rackspace was very, very scared because of being intimidated.
Most people in the U.S. don't want to know how corrupt their government has become. In this thread from yesterday, someone claims "Christianity has matured - it's a peaceful religion" when the U.S. government, a government of a Christian country, has killed more than 3,000,000 people since the end of the Second World War.
Mod imroy's post up as it corrects a factual mistake.
Bus error in your favour. Collect 200kB
Me German.
Me no speak English good.
Me soo sorry.
I had a boss who was a Jew with a problem with authority figures -- he couldn't stand to do what the authorities wanted, without opening his mouth or somehow arguing or otherwise resisting. Really "in your face". A bit like the Woody Allen character who shreds his license when the cop asks for his driver's license, simply because the cop is behaving too authoritarian for him. He even tells the cop that he's got a real problem with authorities.
One time the cops wanted some cooperation with him (a former employee was accused of a serious crime), and I was impressed at how little he he did -- just the bare minimum. I suspect part of it was that he didn't want to get sued by the guy they were investigating by cooperating too much. But another part of it was that he wasn't going to bend over for the cops.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
More: US court files reveal Italian link to Indymedia server grab
-Jeff
P.S. insouciance...
Mistake? Bullshit. It's called yanking the chain.
I'm not sure which is worse... that IndyMedia scrambled the techs and pulled everything when all they were supposedly* required to delivery was logs, or that CNet is now delivering news in blog format just to try to be cool
*Good point from the poster below, there may have been PATRIOTACT subpoenas too, we'll never know since it's a federal crime even to mention it !
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Classic example of revised history
Anyone see a problem here? Any time that bill is up for a vote, or becomes unpopular the bad terroriests suddenly strike!
The CIA *HAS* to be involved with this somewhere!
This isnt good.
It states in the article that Rackspace tried to turn over just the log files but then had to send the entire hard drive to comply with FBI rules.
Do any of you work for an ISP? I used to. If the FBI asks for logs like that you seriously have 12 hours generally to comply or the ISP is fined heavily. If they ask for something specific, and you're slogging through 6TBs of data, you can't possibly find exactly what the FBI wants in less than 12 hours.
The EFF lawyer says it would be like turning over a whole warehouse of documents instead of just one document... Well, good luck finding that needle in a haystack in 12 hours or face a fine that will bankrupt your company.
And as the EFF release puts it:
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
After all, everybody makes mistakes from time to time...
Quite true. I'm sure we can now expect all those
*crickets*
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Second Indymedia Server Seized in UK Within a Year !!
Turns out that nothing was seized. Good old tinfoil-hat journalism!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment
Fourth Amendment - Search and Seizure
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
No one ex[ects the Spanish Inquisition. Our main weapoms are are surprise, fear and almost fanatical devotion to support.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
still trying to promote your shitty sites
lets hope nobody pays you a visit, domains by proxy cant hide you
For you paranoid freaks outthere, sooner or later you need to come to the realizationthat the folks enforcign the law are just like you. They don't like their rights trampled either but they are just as prone to making mistakes.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
How can this be? It doesn't fit into the slashdot worldview that the Great Satan is out to get everybody who isn't a billionaire oil baron!
Indymedia has political content, typically from an anarchist/feminist/leftist/libertarian/green/anti- war
whatever viewpoint. This tends to piss off many governments (Italy, U.S., France, etc.) and corporations (e.g. Diebold, the manufacturers of the U.S.'s electronic voting machines using the DMCA against Indymedia; in the end Diebold was found guilty...).
The Italian government seems to particularily hate Indymedia. One parliamentarian, who happens to be the granddaughter of Mussolini (yes, that Mussolini), has called for Indymedia to be shut down.
In 2001, the Italian government raided an Indymedia center (legally) set up during the G8 meetings/protests there. They sent scores of people to the hospital, including putting people in comas. It was not nice. They beat the hell out of people, smashed cameras and computers. The Italian govt claimed they found molotov cockails and other weapons--the cops later admitted they planted the evidence. Just like fascists of "old".
Last year, around the time of the server seizure, the Italian government had an ISP shut down a server so they could steal the private key used for https encryption. They could then mount a man-in-the-middle attack reading all "encrypted" content, including webmail. The Italian govt got away with this attack for a year before it was discovered. The server was used by many indymedia and activist folks (the server was run by autistici--"the autistics" in italian).
So when some Indymedia sites disappear off the 'net and it's tracked back to the Italian government with FBI cooperation it's not too big of a surprise. I'm sure they are thrilled that rackspace is getting nailed for the whole thing.
-Jeff, ahimsa* admin (which hosts italy.indymedia.org, the targetted site)
He's making a legally binding statement that the data is what was asked for and not something he decided to make up on the spot. I fail to see what your omission of IPs from your logs has to do with that. For that matter, the ease in which it's possible to find the logs in the file system is irrelevant too. What are you getting at?
I knew someone who worked at Rackspace a couple years ago. He said that in the year after 9/11, the FBI installated a huge rack of mystery equipment at each of their OC-12 connections at all of their data sites.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Those installations alone must give the FBI a pretty good coverage of all web traffic, since Rackspace hosts many thousands of the largest sites on the web.
"Rackspace, Indymedia, and the FBI" kind of sounds like a hip-hop group. I can't wait for their next album.
...that fscks your server on a crash? Hope to God your server isn't in a RAID array! Something is awry.... wonder what this "Delete Awry" option does!"
_________
The world doesn't just disappear when you close your eyes, does it?
for those thinking of doing it in the US
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I dig the fact that this article loaded up for me with a big ol' flash banner ad for Rackspace Managed Hosting plastered across the top of the page. Somehow I think this is the last place Rackspace wants their impression just now...
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Fascist: A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism.
But no judicial oversight is required for these agencies so "oops" like these don't happen.
Do you think for a second that AOL, Google or MS would start yanking hard drives from server farms BEFORE asking a question or two to clarify the request.
If the intimidation was such that RackSpace felt compelled to comply for fear of reprisals then they shgould be talking to their Congressional and Senate representatives and NOT potentially ruining businesses for the sake of server logs!
Please... that's just too damn stupid for words.
I don't know Rankspaces management setup, but if the warrent was served on more senior management in the US who subsequently ordered less senior UK staff to turn over the data, those staff would be in an unenviable position. Their Managment is telling them to do something which may be against the law either way. Handing over the data may(#1) be illegal under the UK's Data Protection Act, not fulfilling the warrent may be illegal in the US, where you can extradited very easily, many people would probably take the path of least resitence, and do as they are told.
(#1) The UK Data protection act includes a very clear exemption for handing over data that is illegal or evidence of illegal activity. However it also prohibits exporting data where it won't have the protection of the data protection act. However the Data Protection Act is and EU treaty law so the data would be protected in Italy but not in the US.
So as I said trying decide what is the right & lawful thing, would be a pretty tough call.
Most filesystems have a command called 'dump' which allows a consistent image of a mounted filesystem to be taken. See this man page for one of them:
9 /man/dump/
http://dpobel.free.fr/man/html/affiche_man.php/75
Phil
I guess today is a passable day to die.
It might make sense for someone who's not computer literate. "Dunno what these folks want, let's send em the drives so they can sort it out". But Rackspace? Sure they are not going to take things offline if they can avoid it. And if the deadline was near i'd rather have offered FBI a remote shell access, better if with read only privileges. Also if Rackspace was so in awe of the FBI why RISKING by sending the drives around? what if they get damaged, exposed to magnetic fields, lost? then they could be suspected of trying to hide evidence and they would have NOTHING to defend themselves unless they had a backup, and if they did have backups why servers were taken offline, couldn't they simply send the backup? Being the usual paranoid, I'd say this is an excuse that blames rackspace to save FBI from the heat coming from the hippy commies hackers all over the world.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
YEs it is a thin line indeed !
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
Are desparate to contain the information that is leaking out about government employees masquerading as "terrorists" and engaging in agent provocateur strikes. It's been going on a long time now. Not to say every single incident is an example, but enough of them appear to be.
Sorry, that should have read "RackSpace scrambled the techs" - IndyMedia was the affected party here, *RackSpace* was the one who rolled over like a well-trained dog.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
I was pointing out that it was easy to find the log files in general, since some people think they may have been buried, encrypted somewhere, or whatever.
-Jeff
We ran our site from rackspace for around a year and a half running four servers. In that time they:
- misconfigured switch that cut our bandwidth between our serves to about 1/100th of what it should have been. Only after days of fighting with them would they admit that the problem was on their end and fix it.
- downtime of 7 hours due to the SQL Slammer worm (even though we were a 100% Linux operation and SQL Slammer targeted Windows boxes)
- we had to change our SMTP server's primary IP twice due to several RBL (real time black lists) adding the class C of IP's that our
address was a part of to their spammer lists. Both times, this was due to some sleazy spammer service that Rackspace was hosting on our net block.
- out of our two web servers, one died twice and the other once (and when I say died, I mean complete hardware failure requiring full
reinstall)
- our mail server required hardware replacement on at least three seperate occasions
- our primary db server experienced a full drive failure, despite us having used a RAID10. This means that we lost 2 of our 4 drives at once, or even worse, lost one drive a long time prior to losing the 2nd, with nobody noticing
- so out of 4 servers, every single one died at least once, all in a years time. In the 10+ years I have been working with high traffic infrastructures, I have never seen this level of hardware failure. In fact, I have saw more hardware failure in the time with rackspace than I had total in the prior 8 years.
- support is generally responsive, but difficult to work with. They would ignore tickets prompting them to call me prior to starting work that will
take our servers offline. And on at least one occasion, they ignored my ticket entirely for over 48 hours. I was forced to call them to get any
response.
- getting them to perform any basic sys admin tasks is like pulling teeth. To get them to install even basic security patches is hard enough. And if you modify your system at all from the base install, they do their best to wash their hands of any maintenance. As we were using a Java server, which does not come default with Redhat (Rackspace uses a version of Redhat that is over 3 years old by the way), we ended up having to do most of the management ourself. Managed hosting indeed!
- we purchased tape backups from them for around $400-$500 per month. When I asked for a restore of some data, they were unable to restore from any tapes more recent than 3 months back. They at least agreed to refund the $$ for the previous 3 months, but the fact that they told us our data was being backed up when it wasn't, and that they billed us for it was ridiculous.
In general, I would say our service with Rackspace was of the worst quality. I can safely say that I will NEVER EVER use Rackspace again. Aside from that, their prices are insanely high. By moving our infrastructure to a colocation facility and taking over the management of our servers, we saved ourselves a bundle, and did not really add much time to maintenance given we were typically managing our own servers w/ Rackspace due to their ineptness.
In order for the copies to be deemed certifiable, admissible as evidence, etc., then the drives must be copied by being connected as source devices to special hardware that employs certified "write blockers". Also there needs to be witnesses present during the operation who can testify in court as to the chain of custody of the evidence, and they usually videotape the whole procedure too.
Anything less and the copies can easily be dismissed as "hearsay" in a court of law, and the question arises that any data on the copies might be accused of being tampered with.
I once worked with a local police department and assisted the homicide detectives with recovery of hard drive copies from computers associated with a psycho killer who murdered his wife and girlfriend and was possibly stalking other women online... (yep, a real case of a real criminal using chat forums to find victims).
The hard drive copies were then sent off to the FBI lab and I got to speak with the FBI computer forensics investigator for about an hour and learned some fascinating stuff about how to preserve computer evidence for court... neat stuff they do, and the attention they pay to detail is absolutely meticulous.
I intend to punish Rackspace by taking my business elsewhere. You vote with your money.
other than it juxtaposes the sterotype ?
Service providers deal with a lot of shit from authorities. Even when I worked at a small mom & pop ISP with 5000 customers we'd have to respond to a search warrant on a monthly basis, and they just don't won't accept "the log files were deleted 5 months ago" for an answer. The owner had to show up in court many times and swear that yes, the systems do purge them periodically.
I can only imagine what Rackspace has had to deal with in the past, so when the FBI came by and said "terrorism" they must've shivered at the thought of answering why they can't find something. So they just make it the FBI's problem by handing over the whole disk.
Does this qualify as a chilling effect? The letter of the order said that Rackspace just had to produce specific files, but Rackspace was so afraid of the FBI (from past encounters, perhaps) that they went that far above and beyond?
For the sake of permanence, here's a permalink to the article itself, rather than the blog front page: http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-5815946.html
The viewers of /. are becoming more and more conspiracy oriented each day.
:(
I've rolled my eyes so many times from misguided posts that I now have a headache.
To some people (a vocal minority, I realize), people can't make a mistake, the government is to blame for everything.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Meaning Rush or O'Reilly? Or some of the *really* dumb ones?
Putzes.
This is probably akin to trolling, or at least more properaly an "Ask Slashdot", but any youze /.ers have any recommendations for a hoster that won't roll over and wet itself in eagerness when the Gestapo roll up?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Here is Rackspace's say on this, something which seems to be overlooked:
"We appreciate the opportunity to clarify some of the misconceptions out there surrounding the Indymedia case. Now that portions of the Commissioner's Subpoena have been unsealed, we can address some of the confusion. As you point out, in a communication to our customer, a Rackspace employee mistakenly used the word "hardware" to describe the contents of a federal order. As can be seen from the subpoena, the request was limited to specific log files from the customer's server. In response to the subpoena, Rackspace took the customer's hardware offline - a step Rackspace believed was necessary in order to protect the integrity of the customer's data while the requested files were sought. Rackspace then took the necessary steps to comply with the order, identify the relevant files and provide those files to the FBI.
More specifically, Rackspace employees searched for the specific information requested in the subpoena but were unable to locate this information prior to the strict delivery deadline imposed by the FBI. In order to comply with the mandated deadline, Rackspace delivered copied drives to the FBI. Shortly thereafter, Rackspace succeeded in isolating and extracting the relevant files responsive to the subpoena and immediately asked that the drives be returned by the FBI. The FBI returned the drives, and it was our understanding that at no time had they been reviewed by the FBI. The relevant files were then delivered to the FBI."
You can be a customer of Rackspace for 2 years, miss the cancel deadline by less than 24 hours and they will tell you it's impossible to stop a credit card card charge 8 days later.
This is a funny twist, when I had a hard drive fail over there about 8 months ago, it took over 6 hours to get a new one swapped in.
They do give fanatical support to police though, and fanatical billing to customers.
in this context.
This is an excellent example to refute the argument that government funded information services are more likely to give up user information than private sector services.
The government subpeopned the logs only and the private company completely disrupts all service and takes the sites down. They physically disconnect the drives potentially causing data loss.
Clearly, the sites in question would have been better served and better protected in a municipal government co-hosting facility where the matter would most likely have been handled calmly since there would be no reason to overreact.
The private company shows utter disrespect if not distain for its clients coming from the fear that anything smacking of scandal might scare away other clients and threaten profits.
The growth of the private sector information economy is the ultimate workaround to the protections inherent in the public sector and it is the ultimate threat to free speech. This blatant assault on RackSpace's customers is a fine argument in favor of municipal broadband services.
One time an accountant in my town was arrested (later acquitted for whatever white-collar offense of which he was accused).
When the police raided his office, they actually carried out his computer monitor along with his actual computer, file cabinets, loose papers, et cetera.
What value the police department would find evidence-wise in a CRT is beyond me -- maybe the FBI has wised up and realized a hard drive (or in some cases a copy thereof) is all you need for investigative purposes and the rest is like seizing the microwave as evidence.
Next time I'll take the Rational Support plan, thank you.
Don't worry, GWB is working on fixing this...
And no, I'm not joking... much the constition is already being used as so much toilet paper... with rights giving way to corporate interests (DCMA) or religious "moral" groups trying to muzzle the content open to the public of all ages.
Yes, and quite often when I make mistakes I *pay* for them. If proper procedure was not followed, I'd like to see somebody held accountable for it rather than just having Indymedia have to bite on sour grapes.
will still have no idea what actually was requested of rackspace by the FBI ..there can be a big difference between what a subpoena says and what the agency enforcing it says. Without Rackspaces side we really don't know and since this is Terrosist related the FBI no doubt used patriot act powers meaning rackspace can't talk about it and any FBI info about it will not be released or even confirmed to exist.
My provider would never pull that shit. Operations like Rackspace get so big they don't know their left hand from their right asscheek. I support small and medium businesses b/c the big fish aren't capable of the traits I desire. Make sense?
I have dealt with law enforcement in the past, and I always gave them exactly what THE COURT ORDER asked for, no more, no less, and everyone was happy, including the lawyers. ISPs have been giving law enforcement authorities logs for years, there are lots of reasons besides "terrorism".
It's a BOFH's dream come true - just drop the server in a Fedex bag and ship it to Washington. How much easier could system administration get?
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
If Rackspace had only handed over a copy of the logs, then indymedia and the public at large would have never known about it in the first place. The websites going down at least made it reasonable for Rackspace to be able to say that something happened, otherwise the PATRIOTic secrecy of freedom oxymoron factor would have prevailed.
Land of the Free*
(*Void where prohibited. Certain restrictions apply. See your congressional representative for details.)
Hey, Mr. Weston:
I think it's time for you to respond to this matter, making restitution and issuing an apology if necessary (if, as it appears, the service suspension was not performed in accordance with the service agreement), before your customers have a chance to arrange hosting elsewhere and jump ship. =)
Having worked there for over a year (Team C), I can tell you they give employees the fanatical shaft. So don't feel too bad.
"The district court of the district in which a person resides or is found may order him to give his testimony or statement or to produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal, including criminal investigations conducted before formal accusation. The order ... may direct that the testimony or statement be given, or the document or other thing be produced, before a person appointed by the court. By virtue of his appointment, the person appointed has power to administer any necessary oath and take the testimony or statement. ... To the extent that the order does not prescribe otherwise, the testimony or statement shall be taken, and the document or other thing produced, in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure."
The point is that the real order came from a district court judge, and if Rackspace wanted to object to it, they had the right to raise any of the objections in the federal rules of civil procedure that would apply in a deposition, like "it costs too much", "the request is overreaching", "the request would interfere with the operation of our business", etc. And they're raised before that judge, not the "commissioner". Note that civil procedure applies, even though this is a criminal case. There's no arrest authority implicit in this.
Now this is standard DOJ procedure. But it's more intimidation than actual legal authority. The use of the "commissioner" term is pure intimidation. Especially if the "commissioner subpoena" was delivered without the court order from a real judge that authorizes it.
I agree with you wholeheartedly there. It is a very fine line. I try very hard not to cross it, and this time, it may be possible that I jumped the gun. There are, however, many things that I read/see/hear about from international and independent media that never seems to get any coverage in the US (I covered this all in this comment).
Maybe my tinfoil hat fits a bit too tightly ;)
I do think that it is a citizen's duty to keep an eye on their government, though, and to make sure that said gov't knows that the people are watching. Even withour the tinfoil hats, this can be useful.
This applies to governments too:
The distance between overzealous defense and terrorism, no matter (and more likely especially) how intense your sense of righteous indignation is, is a short one.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
Is it just me, or does the post contradict itself?
"Rackspace pulled the whole hard drive and shut down a dozen websites, and the Slashdot community cried 'Say it ain't so!' It ain't so."
But oh, actually it was so; Rackspace did pull the whole hard drive:
"The documents have been unsealed and CNet is reporting that Rackspace made a mistake. The government wanted only copies of logs, not entire hard drives. It seems the week of downtime wasn't really necessary. Oops!"
What am I missing? Somebody somewhere "made a mistake" and therefore the whole thing never happened? That's some seriously strange reasoning.
I was on team B I think, and I can't say I was happy with however rackspace told them to handle our case, versus others.
I'm sure they are fanatical when it comes to overtime too.
that is pure flamebait
is that Slashdot posters would jump to the wrong conclusion about the government! Next thing you know you'll see people on here bad-mouthing Microsoft without really having a clue what they're talking about. Say it isn't so :(
I followed the Rackspace link, and ended up reading a seamingly unrelated article: Montana Supreme Court justice warns Orwell's 1984 has arrived.
Well, this article is mostly a reproduction of a judge's opinion in a garbage-can-search case, and it is an excellent read. The judge appears to have let off some (insightful) steam.
Read it.
It's terrible that anyone needs a citation for this. The U.S. government has been a major killer, and most U.S. citizens have not been paying attention.
Here's a short article: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.
Recently I was talking with someone from another country. When I said that the U.S. government had killed 3,000,000 since the end of the Second World War, he said, "11,000,000". He's right. The lower figure includes just those killed directly by the U.S. government. The higher figure includes people who died because of indirect events caused by the U.S. government. For example, the U.S. government (not the people) bombed Cambodia. It is credibly estimated that the violence that happened after caused the deaths of millions of people.
Violence breeds violence, as the U.S. government's present war in Iraq demonstrates once again.
If your government chooses killing as policy, expect others to choose the same.
If you support dishonesty and violence, don't say you are Christian.
Sorry for my mistake!!! The real number should have been 5,000,000 people killed just in Vietnam.
I had forgotten about the latest estimates. The U.S. government engages in so much violence that it is impossible for one person to know about all of it.
This seems correct:
Vietnam War Casualties "Vietnam released figures on April 3, 1995 that a total of one million Vietnamese combatants and four million civilians were killed in the war."
NONE of those people killed directly threatened anyone in the United States. The average income in Vietnam was then something like $80/YEAR (not week or month). What was a violent-minded Vietnamese to do, get his relatives to contribute to buy a $1,000 airline ticket, and hit people with his fists?
FBI> we have a court order for the log files on those Indy servers and we order you to supply them to us immediately.
Tech> Well, I think they are in that rack, but I'm not sure which, unless I look it up, plus, I'm in the middle of my game.
FBI> Well Jump to it son 'cause we have a subpoena!
Tech> Well, I'm not touching the data, here's the drive, you figure out where the files you want are.
Sorry for my mistake!!! The real number should have been 5,000,000 people killed just in Vietnam.
And we all know that not a single shot would have been fired had the US Military not gone over there. Yeah, right.
Your single statistic is no different then the RIAA's figures. You need to look BIG PICTURE.
You seem to have glossed over the domino theory..
From the same web site you linked to:
The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand stayed free of Communism because of the U.S. commitment to Vietnam. The Indonesians threw the Soviets out in 1966 because of America's commitment in Vietnam. Without that commitment, Communism would have swept all the way to the Malacca Straits that is south of Singapore and of great strategic importance to the free world. If you ask people who live in these countries that won the war in Vietnam, they have a different opinion from the American news media. The Vietnam War was the turning point for Communism.
I am not defending the US Military or anyone who made military decisions in that time frame, but your one sided statistic can not sum up the outcome of that military action.
How many Enemies has the Government Fed this week would be the question, if this country was actually based on Christianity.
There is nothing Christianly about fixing facts and evidence around a predetermined policy of Waging War Upon Iraq, the Truth Notwithstanding.
There is nothing Christianlike or Constitutional in Mr. Bush's self-determination to strip the right of humans to due process of law, lock them up for three years, and then quietly repatriate them.
Here, have some words from Paul:
Want to try and foist off the Unchristian concept of an eye for an eye as a rationale for Bush Heresy?
This country is filled with poseurs, carrying their corked crosses over their shoulders, pretending to follow a religion they have no personal understanding of.
The hateful words of the tubby televanglist fatwads has nothing to do with what is taught in the New Testament.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Kill someone now to possibly prevent killing in the future? Who gets to decide who kills? Who gets to decide who gets killed? I'm betting that you are not volunteering yourself or your family to be killed.
Killing to stop violence? Is that like sex to prevent pregnancy?
What utter garbage. America walked away, and Vietnam did fall to communism, 30 years ago. So much for the dominos.
Nixon made up his mind to walk away only to bleed American GIs and Vietnamese from the South and North out an extra two years for pure political utilitarianism. The Nixon Realism was a Real Bitch.
Here's a gem from the the Nixon aide Hadleman in 1970, scraped from the University of Virginia's, Miller Center of Public Affairs. Scripps Library and Multimedia Archive's Nixon Presidency online exhibit called: Seeking a 'Decent Interval' Exit from Vietnam.
Keep the memory of the Nixon DarkEvil alive.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Something like $8 trillion for research into killing and for killing itself.
Very little for research into how to make stable relationships.
Nothing like that. I assume no one is reading this thread except you. How much time should I spend talking to one person who is not even willing to reveal anything about himself except that he was in the military, and who does not log in to Slashdot?
The first step is to understand anger. Anger is a mental illness that makes those who have it unable to emphasize with other people. Anger feeds on itself. Those who have anger are often unable to stop its worsening, even though it degrades everything in the lives of the people who have it.
It sounds to me that you and your friend are simply repeating deranged communist bullshit.
For example, the U.S. government (not the people) bombed Cambodia. It is credibly estimated that the violence that happened after caused the deaths of millions of people.
Bullshit. It was Pol Pot who caused the deaths of millions of people by imposing the purest Marxist regime ever to exist. The U.S. bombing of Cambodia played no role in his rise to power.
The U.S. did not kill 5 million people in Vietnam, nor was the war in Vietnam caused by the U.S.
People like you want to give us the impression that all deaths in Vietnam were peaceful civilians killed by the aggression of the Evil Americans who specifically targeted and bombed schools and nurseries full of women, children and infants.
Those who are not communist psychopaths or rabid anti-Americans use the following figures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualtie s :
* Around 700,000 North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong killed and/or missing
* At least 70,000 North Vietnamese civilians killed by Allied bombings
* Around 250,000 South Vietnamese Army killed and/or missing
* Anywhere from 800,000 to 1,500,000 South Vietnamese civilians killed and/or died of starvation, wounds, disease, drought, friendly fire, atrocities etc.
Other estimates are that around 100,000 North Vietnamese civilians were killed by U.S. bombings. Most figures state around 1 million civilians killed on both sides during 1957 to 1975.