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So... is this just a case of massive incompetence on the FBI's part? Why would they take the server and not the HDDs?

by bkudria 15y ago

bigiain 15y ago
I wonder if this is a case of "the law" being so far behind technology that it's completely unworkable? My suspicion is that the FBI had a warrant for somebodies "server", without any consideration given to what "a server" means in terms of physically removable equipment compared to what someone like Marco actually gets when he leases "a server". I'll bet no one tried to explain to the judge signing the warrant that the "server" they wanted to seize was actually a blade card sitting in a chassis with a bunch of other blades (that were _other_ people's "servers" (on which they were running their businesses), and that the "disks" for the servers they wanted to seize were actually virtual disks sitting on another piece of shared hardware... And I wonder what we'll be deploying on when the law catches up with today's standard hosting practices?
Harkins 15y ago
It sounds to me like the FBI grabbed the entire enclosure that included their target and unrelated DigitalOne customers, then sorted out which they wanted to keep as evidence from there.
- bigiain 15y ago
  One assumption is that the FBI took the blade chassis that the target's server lived on (with the Instapaper one as collateral damage) _and_ a NAS box with the target's virtual disks (but a different NAS to the one with the Instapaper disks). It's also possible the FBI just took a rackful of diskless blade servers, and have no evidence at all, target related or not...
brown9-2 15y ago
We don't know that they didn't seize other hard drives, just not ones used by Instapaper.
- alex_h 15y ago
  But it would be odd if the FBI was clueless enough to take an entire rack of servers when they were after just 1, yet smart enough to pick exactly the right drives out of a disk array. (assuming thats even possible)
  - ktsmith 15y ago
    A single C7000 is 10U in height and can house 16 half height blades. If they are using full height blades it houses eight. A typical enclosure is 36U, 42U, or 45U so it's certainly plausible the enclosure that was seized housed multiple blade chassis and or storage chassis. In which case it's also completely plausible that the storage array for Instapaper was in a different enclosure but the storage array the FBI cared about was in the same enclosure as the blade chassis. What would be odd is if the FBI pulled out only the blades they were interested in at the data center and left everything else intact. What's much more likely is they took the entire chassis as it is in working condition so they could do their analysis. If they missed something or their warrant didn't include additional enclosures or equipment then they'll probably be back with a second warrant to collect the enclosure with all the storage arrays.

So... is this just a case of massive incompetence on the FBI's part? Why would they take the server and not the HDDs?

by bkudria 15y ago

So... is this just a case of massive incompetence on the FBI's part? Why would they take the server and not the HDDs?

I wonder if this is a case of "the law" being so far behind technology that it's completely unworkable? My suspicion is that the FBI had a warrant for somebodies "server", without any consideration given to what "a server" means in terms of physically removable equipment compared to what someone like Marco actually gets when he leases "a server". I'll bet no one tried to explain to the judge signing the warrant that the "server" they wanted to seize was actually a blade card sitting in a chassis with a bunch of other blades (that were _other_ people's "servers" (on which they were running their businesses), and that the "disks" for the servers they wanted to seize were actually virtual disks sitting on another piece of shared hardware... And I wonder what we'll be deploying on when the law catches up with today's standard hosting practices?

Harkins 15y ago

It sounds to me like the FBI grabbed the entire enclosure that included their target and unrelated DigitalOne customers, then sorted out which they wanted to keep as evidence from there.

bigiain 15y ago
One assumption is that the FBI took the blade chassis that the target's server lived on (with the Instapaper one as collateral damage) _and_ a NAS box with the target's virtual disks (but a different NAS to the one with the Instapaper disks). It's also possible the FBI just took a rackful of diskless blade servers, and have no evidence at all, target related or not...

brown9-2 15y ago

We don't know that they didn't seize other hard drives, just not ones used by Instapaper.

alex_h 15y ago
But it would be odd if the FBI was clueless enough to take an entire rack of servers when they were after just 1, yet smart enough to pick exactly the right drives out of a disk array. (assuming thats even possible)
- ktsmith 15y ago
  A single C7000 is 10U in height and can house 16 half height blades. If they are using full height blades it houses eight. A typical enclosure is 36U, 42U, or 45U so it's certainly plausible the enclosure that was seized housed multiple blade chassis and or storage chassis. In which case it's also completely plausible that the storage array for Instapaper was in a different enclosure but the storage array the FBI cared about was in the same enclosure as the blade chassis. What would be odd is if the FBI pulled out only the blades they were interested in at the data center and left everything else intact. What's much more likely is they took the entire chassis as it is in working condition so they could do their analysis. If they missed something or their warrant didn't include additional enclosures or equipment then they'll probably be back with a second warrant to collect the enclosure with all the storage arrays.