4 ms·

> The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff woul

> The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night. Two things occur to me about this story, exposed in this quote, that I often think when seeing stories of this nature: 1. Many businesses that rely on computers don't have a disaster recovery plan, and thus, can't spin up again for a while, sometimes at all. 2. Good security (i.e. enough to frustrate aggressive criminal gangs, like the police) is often not in place, for a number of understandable reasons, but they also tend to include less understandable ones (as in (1)). People like our good selves, the readers of HN, might think about how we can offer our services a bit more widely to help some of the smaller fish out there stand up to bullying and attacks.

batch12 3y ago
This actually gave me an idea for a service, thanks for the call to action-
- Arainach 3y ago
  Note that if you advertise a service like this you will almost certainly face charges of obstructing justice. I'm not qualified to say if you could defend against them but your legal bills would be potentially infinite.
  - batch12 3y ago
    A small business disaster recovery service? I don't think so-
amoshi 3y ago
Wouldn't the Disaster Recovery/backup equipment also be confiscated by the police?
- shawncampbell 3y ago
  The 1 in 3-2-1 would ensure you have a copy offsite as well. https://www.uschamber.com/co/run/technology/3-2-1-backup-rule https://www.uschamber.com/co/run/technology/3-2-1-backup-rul...
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    How far offsite? Like, across the street? In another town? Out of state? Does a small-town newspaper expect to be raided by law enforcement and build a disaster recovery plan around that, or a tornado? They don't call it "The Long Arm of the Law" for no reason.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - xboxnolifes 3y ago
      Well, if your attack vector is local law enforcement, then in a different jurisdiction would be a good start. Working your way further and further toward whatever makes it most annoying for them to get to.
    - 6510 3y ago
      One would have to think about it and investigate. Say, they might confiscate your laptop with thunderbird and your mail archive but they probably wont delete your webmail account or forbid you from using it. At least I imagine if the point is to gather information it doesn't include deleting it or taking control of it? If they really want to delete your things I imagine one could create an append only webservice. Preserving some things (without hiding anything) is better than nothing.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      I recommend to parties I work with that are at risk from these sorts of events to keep their BCDR (business continuity disaster recovery) data corpus at risk in European datacenters owned by European companies. Can be as simple as rsyncs or blob storage backups, or active infra always running, depending on budget and organizational needs and maturity.
mojomark 3y ago
[flagged]
- Ar-Curunir 3y ago
  The good cops have never done enough to stop the bad ones. At some point you have to stop making excuses for these hypothetical creatures
  - mojomark 3y ago
    So, my comment was flagged for simply stating the fact that not all police are bad people. Great, we'll done HN. As someone who lived in Baltimore City for 20 years, and was forced out due to uncontrollable crime, I can say from first hand experience that good police officers exist and they are heros. After: 1. My house was robbed. Police responded and worked to connect my incident with others in the area to find the peeps and hold them accountable. 2. My neighbor was mugged/beaten while getting into his car in front of his house. Police responded within a minute and took care (even though the perps got away). 3. A woman a block away from my house was mugged (face fully "punched in," purse snatched). After hearing blood curtling screams I ran out, saw the perps run around the corner, I ran out in my bare feet to take chase, turned two corners (2 city blocks) and the police already had the perp on the ground in cuffs. Say and flag what you want if it makes you feel better about yourself, but know that when you live in a city overrun by crime, and good people (who are actually our fellow citizens) who protect others daily - you realize how important and brave those folks are. Not all are good (as evidenced in the OP). Not all are bad. Yes, the system is broken and needs to evolve. But I recommend you put your life on the line in the street, protecting strangers for meager pay, before sitting in your gaming chair and make sweeping claims about good people who are actually trying to improve society. Call out bad police. Fix the system. Absolutely, but broad generalizations (effectively using lazy heuristics) are at the root of hate and discontent in the world.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-... > Here's an interesting factoid about contemporary policing: In 2014, for the first time ever, law enforcement officers took more property from American citizens than burglars did. Martin Armstrong pointed this out at his blog, Armstrong Economics, last week. > Officers can take cash and property from people without convicting or even charging them with a crime — yes, really! — through the highly controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture. Last year, according to the Institute for Justice, the Treasury and Justice departments deposited more than $5 billion into their respective asset forfeiture funds. That same year, the FBI reports that burglary losses topped out at $3.5 billion.
jackthetab 3y ago
Good idea IMO. I'm wondering about the (not necessarily financial) ROI. I don't know many small businesses that could afford it and I think the the load on the tech volunteers would be too large. Happy to be proved wrong, though.

batch12 3y ago

This actually gave me an idea for a service, thanks for the call to action-

Arainach 3y ago
Note that if you advertise a service like this you will almost certainly face charges of obstructing justice. I'm not qualified to say if you could defend against them but your legal bills would be potentially infinite.
- batch12 3y ago
  A small business disaster recovery service? I don't think so-

amoshi 3y ago

Wouldn't the Disaster Recovery/backup equipment also be confiscated by the police?

shawncampbell 3y ago
The 1 in 3-2-1 would ensure you have a copy offsite as well. https://www.uschamber.com/co/run/technology/3-2-1-backup-rule https://www.uschamber.com/co/run/technology/3-2-1-backup-rul...
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  How far offsite? Like, across the street? In another town? Out of state? Does a small-town newspaper expect to be raided by law enforcement and build a disaster recovery plan around that, or a tornado? They don't call it "The Long Arm of the Law" for no reason.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    Well, if your attack vector is local law enforcement, then in a different jurisdiction would be a good start. Working your way further and further toward whatever makes it most annoying for them to get to.
  - 6510 3y ago
    One would have to think about it and investigate. Say, they might confiscate your laptop with thunderbird and your mail archive but they probably wont delete your webmail account or forbid you from using it. At least I imagine if the point is to gather information it doesn't include deleting it or taking control of it? If they really want to delete your things I imagine one could create an append only webservice. Preserving some things (without hiding anything) is better than nothing.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    I recommend to parties I work with that are at risk from these sorts of events to keep their BCDR (business continuity disaster recovery) data corpus at risk in European datacenters owned by European companies. Can be as simple as rsyncs or blob storage backups, or active infra always running, depending on budget and organizational needs and maturity.

mojomark 3y ago

[flagged]

Ar-Curunir 3y ago
The good cops have never done enough to stop the bad ones. At some point you have to stop making excuses for these hypothetical creatures
- mojomark 3y ago
  So, my comment was flagged for simply stating the fact that not all police are bad people. Great, we'll done HN. As someone who lived in Baltimore City for 20 years, and was forced out due to uncontrollable crime, I can say from first hand experience that good police officers exist and they are heros. After: 1. My house was robbed. Police responded and worked to connect my incident with others in the area to find the peeps and hold them accountable. 2. My neighbor was mugged/beaten while getting into his car in front of his house. Police responded within a minute and took care (even though the perps got away). 3. A woman a block away from my house was mugged (face fully "punched in," purse snatched). After hearing blood curtling screams I ran out, saw the perps run around the corner, I ran out in my bare feet to take chase, turned two corners (2 city blocks) and the police already had the perp on the ground in cuffs. Say and flag what you want if it makes you feel better about yourself, but know that when you live in a city overrun by crime, and good people (who are actually our fellow citizens) who protect others daily - you realize how important and brave those folks are. Not all are good (as evidenced in the OP). Not all are bad. Yes, the system is broken and needs to evolve. But I recommend you put your life on the line in the street, protecting strangers for meager pay, before sitting in your gaming chair and make sweeping claims about good people who are actually trying to improve society. Call out bad police. Fix the system. Absolutely, but broad generalizations (effectively using lazy heuristics) are at the root of hate and discontent in the world.
ceejayoz 3y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-... > Here's an interesting factoid about contemporary policing: In 2014, for the first time ever, law enforcement officers took more property from American citizens than burglars did. Martin Armstrong pointed this out at his blog, Armstrong Economics, last week. > Officers can take cash and property from people without convicting or even charging them with a crime — yes, really! — through the highly controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture. Last year, according to the Institute for Justice, the Treasury and Justice departments deposited more than $5 billion into their respective asset forfeiture funds. That same year, the FBI reports that burglary losses topped out at $3.5 billion.

jackthetab 3y ago

Good idea IMO. I'm wondering about the (not necessarily financial) ROI. I don't know many small businesses that could afford it and I think the the load on the tech volunteers would be too large. Happy to be proved wrong, though.