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I recently had to hand-over a ton of data for a police investigation. The data had to come from off-site backups, I had to write manual SQL queries because of u

by adevx 5y ago

I recently had to hand-over a ton of data for a police investigation. The data had to come from off-site backups, I had to write manual SQL queries because of unique data requests that required cross references. All in all a lot of work that would be hard and time consuming to get if they bypassed me and accessed the raw data from my VPS provider. It would have saved me a ton of time though had they bypassed me.

bredren 5y ago
Did you charge them fees? It can be possible to reasonably recover costs associated with these efforts.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  It doesn't work that way. Government forces us to use their service for a fee, and forces us to provide services for free. Tax filing, and handling authorities requests are prime examples.
  - bredren 5y ago
    It does sometimes in the US. Some agencies will pay companies to perform digital forensic work necessary to offer data. Even administration of the job of forensic work, ie PM level assistance can be compensated. This includes if a company is served a subpoena and a warrant to provide certain data. Billing can be good, certainly valley-competitive. Iirc, this has been well covered as a thing that happens at big tech companies, including fb, but it also can apply to small ones.
- adevx 5y ago
  No, I didn't. Not sure this is possible in the Netherlands. I had an hour long Teams call for them to know what data they could request. After the formal request came in it took a good part of the day to get everything they requested. Received some follow up requests so probably a full day "lost". If nothing else it was a good test of the backup system.
  - bredren 5y ago
    If it happens again, it may be worth asking. I don’t think this is the kind of thing agencies offer cash for out of hand. I don’t know how law-enforcement is funded there, but presumably they do use contractors and service providers. If their alternative is to pay a contractor who has no familiarity with your system, it would be preferable to simply pay the person who knows what they’re doing and be done with it.

by adevx 5y ago

bredren 5y ago

Did you charge them fees? It can be possible to reasonably recover costs associated with these efforts.

hirako2000 5y ago
It doesn't work that way. Government forces us to use their service for a fee, and forces us to provide services for free. Tax filing, and handling authorities requests are prime examples.
- bredren 5y ago
  It does sometimes in the US. Some agencies will pay companies to perform digital forensic work necessary to offer data. Even administration of the job of forensic work, ie PM level assistance can be compensated. This includes if a company is served a subpoena and a warrant to provide certain data. Billing can be good, certainly valley-competitive. Iirc, this has been well covered as a thing that happens at big tech companies, including fb, but it also can apply to small ones.
adevx 5y ago
No, I didn't. Not sure this is possible in the Netherlands. I had an hour long Teams call for them to know what data they could request. After the formal request came in it took a good part of the day to get everything they requested. Received some follow up requests so probably a full day "lost". If nothing else it was a good test of the backup system.
- bredren 5y ago
  If it happens again, it may be worth asking. I don’t think this is the kind of thing agencies offer cash for out of hand. I don’t know how law-enforcement is funded there, but presumably they do use contractors and service providers. If their alternative is to pay a contractor who has no familiarity with your system, it would be preferable to simply pay the person who knows what they’re doing and be done with it.