5 ms·

How are office raids still a thing? Surely these are 100% for show nowadays...

by tormeh 3y ago

perlgeek 3y ago
There are still printed documents, and I guess they'll use an office raid as a way to gain access to employee's emails.
- avidiax 3y ago
  This. It is a very useful way to get access to unlocked workstations and corporate phones, which allows any city police force to search or access information that a national or foreign court might never allow, or only after a drawn out legal process. A company I worked for had a few people at each site that had a kill switch that would lock all workstations and lock out all employees at that site. That would prevent the fishing expedition from succeeding. Similarly, another company I worked for had a company policy that you should physically give up your corporate laptop and phone to customs, but speak to company counsel before giving any sign in credentials. Some countries like to data mine business travelers if they have a beef with the traveller's employer. Edit: I should point out that every large company should have a rapid response security team. And even if there's no formal system or procedure for a police raid, it would only take a few minutes for that team to decide that they have an obligation to protect the company's data and network. They certainly wouldn't let non-employees sit at a terminal and do whatever they want for hours or days.
  - pif 3y ago
    > A company I worked for had a few people at each site that had a kill switch ... Other than an admission of doing something shady, what else could this be?
    - wolf550e 3y ago
      Protection from corporate espionage
    - hef19898 3y ago
      A court order, and all the necessary data will be provided anyway. That, and the company in question all of a sudden looks very guilty. As MorganStanley (?) showed us, in these cases absence of documents is considered to be proof the accusations of illegal behavior are true.
      - avidiax 3y ago
        Yes, the company would comply with discovery, but it operated in hundreds of jurisdictions, and sometimes those jurisdictions think that kicking in doors and telling the interns that they'll go to prison if they don't give their passwords is easier. This is especially true if this authority intends to use the fishing expedition to build the case in the first place.
        hef19898 3y ago
        That those jurisdictions are none of the big economies (US, Canada, UK, EU, Japan...). And in most of the others... Well, first I have no idea how anti-trust works there. Second, rules are totally different. Still, hiding evidence from authorities is a sure way to get you int trouble, as a company and as an employee. Every compliance training I had, covering everything from consumer goods to defense, told you to fully comply with authorities in case of a search. Call legal and site security, stay with the people conducting the search, but fully comply and NEVER try to hide stuff or hinder them in any way, shape or form. That's what legal councils are there for. And courts.
        avidiax 3y ago
        > Call legal and site security Precisely the people that have IT on speed dial to cut off site access, deactivate accounts and badges.
        hef19898 3y ago
        And if those people are wise, they won't do any of that is police and prosecutors are doing the search. The point is to have witnesses of the search present, e.g. to later challenge it in court. You never, ever interfere with a search of premises by police. What can happen if you do, well, look no further than Mar-a-Lago. because all you do is adding charges of obstruction. But hey, if you think that you know better than legal departments of some of the biggest, and most scrutinized, companies in the western world, sure, go ahead.
    - Bancakes 3y ago
      The expectation of privacy is universal. Why would you go through someone’s data?
      - hef19898 3y ago
        It is universal, but not absolute.
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      Network, data-store and console kill switches aren't necessarily designed to impede lawful investigations. Anything that involves physical coercion might need to lock-down all terminals in a hurry. Acting against a legal seizure is probably not on their minds but larger orgs may have a fast response security team that can step in if: 1) An intruder enters the building, maybe armed, and tries to coerce an individual to do something on a console. 2) An insider threat is discovered and you need to hold the room for questioning without letting someone slip out the back and delete all the evidence.
  - meiraleal 3y ago
    > And even if there's no formal system or procedure for a police raid, it would only take a few minutes for that team to decide that they have an obligation to protect the company's data and network Are you advocating that employees have the obligation to break the law to protect a business that might be doing illegal things? Are you an employee or an employer?
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Temporarily embarassed founder-CEO of a global tech giant, I suppose.
    - avidiax 3y ago
      > break the law You misunderstand the law. The police can collect evidence in their jurisdiction. They are free to grab papers, phones, laptops, servers, etc. If the hard drives are encrypted, they can ask a judge to compel decryption, after presenting evidence and subject to rebuttal by legal counsel. What the police often want to do is an extra-legal search of materials outside their jurisdiction, i.e. in the cloud, in remote servers, etc. I would posit that this is almost always the case, since raiding any tech company would otherwise yield a few printouts and a stack of encrypted laptops. > Are you advocating that employees have the obligation to break the law Absolutely not. The IT employee is probably several time zones away, and is just securing assets not on-site. His team mate will probably provide discovery if/when the police actually request things through a court process. The staff on site should cooperate, whether or not their cooperation has been rendered moot. You aren't suggesting that the police should be able to sit in that office, accessing anything they want on remote servers, indefinitely, right? Why can't the police kick the IT guy's door in and demand an admin login?
      - meiraleal 3y ago
        > What the police often want to do is an extra-legal search of materials outside their jurisdiction, i.e. in the cloud, in remote servers, etc. I would posit that this is almost always the case, since raiding any tech company would otherwise yield a few printouts and a stack of encrypted laptops. Ok, my advice to anyone reading this is that if you find yourself in this situation, help the police get as much information they can about it. Nobody should get in the middle of law enforcers business for a wage, don't risk yourself. > You aren't suggesting that the police should be able to sit in that office, accessing anything they want on remote servers, indefinitely, right? Why can't the police kick the IT guy's door in and demand an admin login? I'm suggesting that if you create/operate a kill switch you might go to jail and it will be for a wage, something that a competent tech person can get anywhere, probably with a better work life balance than a place that is under risk of police raid.
pjerem 3y ago
In theory they are trained to avoid the workers to lock their sessions. I think they can’t do anything if it’s locked anyway but most workers are not loyal enough to their employer to risk being prosecuted for hindering an ongoing investigation. Most workers aren’t involved in anything bad so most of them will not hide proof.
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  So business could train employees to do that immidiately when a raid happens, they could even run training sessions (like a fire alarm training where everyone has to pretend it's a real fire, or doesn't even know it's not real), but that would probably raise red flags.
  - johndunne 3y ago
    If a business asked me to go on a training session with this in mind, red flag. Big red flag. I think most people would react similarly.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Oh, the joy of being a prosecutor and finding such training material. Case opened and won right away!
      - TheHappyOddish 3y ago
        How so? No data is destroyed, just kept private.
        hef19898 3y ago
        Hidding information is seen as obstruction, usually illegal in itself, and shows intend behind whatever illegal and anti-trust violations happened... No idea why this is so hard to understand...
Kretinsky 3y ago
You would be suprised by the amount of stuff kept on paper in many offices. Especially by those doing shady things, such as aggressive tax optimization. Having everything online also means that you're at risk of being hacked, whereas if it's in a locked room, you have a lot more control over who accesses the sensitive data.
lm28469 3y ago
Didn't they bust the US president with boxes of top secret documents lying around ? People are much lazier than you think, especially when they think they're better than others and/or above the law. One quick glance at wikileaks will tell you people don't think much when creating/storing/sharing files
somecommit 3y ago
This is the french internet police. As french myself I'm not surprised about this anachronism touch.

How are office raids still a thing? Surely these are 100% for show nowadays...

by tormeh 3y ago

How are office raids still a thing? Surely these are 100% for show nowadays...

perlgeek 3y ago

There are still printed documents, and I guess they'll use an office raid as a way to gain access to employee's emails.

avidiax 3y ago
This. It is a very useful way to get access to unlocked workstations and corporate phones, which allows any city police force to search or access information that a national or foreign court might never allow, or only after a drawn out legal process. A company I worked for had a few people at each site that had a kill switch that would lock all workstations and lock out all employees at that site. That would prevent the fishing expedition from succeeding. Similarly, another company I worked for had a company policy that you should physically give up your corporate laptop and phone to customs, but speak to company counsel before giving any sign in credentials. Some countries like to data mine business travelers if they have a beef with the traveller's employer. Edit: I should point out that every large company should have a rapid response security team. And even if there's no formal system or procedure for a police raid, it would only take a few minutes for that team to decide that they have an obligation to protect the company's data and network. They certainly wouldn't let non-employees sit at a terminal and do whatever they want for hours or days.
- pif 3y ago
  > A company I worked for had a few people at each site that had a kill switch ... Other than an admission of doing something shady, what else could this be?
  - wolf550e 3y ago
    Protection from corporate espionage
  - hef19898 3y ago
    A court order, and all the necessary data will be provided anyway. That, and the company in question all of a sudden looks very guilty. As MorganStanley (?) showed us, in these cases absence of documents is considered to be proof the accusations of illegal behavior are true.
    - avidiax 3y ago
      Yes, the company would comply with discovery, but it operated in hundreds of jurisdictions, and sometimes those jurisdictions think that kicking in doors and telling the interns that they'll go to prison if they don't give their passwords is easier. This is especially true if this authority intends to use the fishing expedition to build the case in the first place.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        That those jurisdictions are none of the big economies (US, Canada, UK, EU, Japan...). And in most of the others... Well, first I have no idea how anti-trust works there. Second, rules are totally different. Still, hiding evidence from authorities is a sure way to get you int trouble, as a company and as an employee. Every compliance training I had, covering everything from consumer goods to defense, told you to fully comply with authorities in case of a search. Call legal and site security, stay with the people conducting the search, but fully comply and NEVER try to hide stuff or hinder them in any way, shape or form. That's what legal councils are there for. And courts.
        avidiax 3y ago
        > Call legal and site security Precisely the people that have IT on speed dial to cut off site access, deactivate accounts and badges.
        hef19898 3y ago
        And if those people are wise, they won't do any of that is police and prosecutors are doing the search. The point is to have witnesses of the search present, e.g. to later challenge it in court. You never, ever interfere with a search of premises by police. What can happen if you do, well, look no further than Mar-a-Lago. because all you do is adding charges of obstruction. But hey, if you think that you know better than legal departments of some of the biggest, and most scrutinized, companies in the western world, sure, go ahead.
  - Bancakes 3y ago
    The expectation of privacy is universal. Why would you go through someone’s data?
    - hef19898 3y ago
      It is universal, but not absolute.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Network, data-store and console kill switches aren't necessarily designed to impede lawful investigations. Anything that involves physical coercion might need to lock-down all terminals in a hurry. Acting against a legal seizure is probably not on their minds but larger orgs may have a fast response security team that can step in if: 1) An intruder enters the building, maybe armed, and tries to coerce an individual to do something on a console. 2) An insider threat is discovered and you need to hold the room for questioning without letting someone slip out the back and delete all the evidence.
- meiraleal 3y ago
  > And even if there's no formal system or procedure for a police raid, it would only take a few minutes for that team to decide that they have an obligation to protect the company's data and network Are you advocating that employees have the obligation to break the law to protect a business that might be doing illegal things? Are you an employee or an employer?
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Temporarily embarassed founder-CEO of a global tech giant, I suppose.
  - avidiax 3y ago
    > break the law You misunderstand the law. The police can collect evidence in their jurisdiction. They are free to grab papers, phones, laptops, servers, etc. If the hard drives are encrypted, they can ask a judge to compel decryption, after presenting evidence and subject to rebuttal by legal counsel. What the police often want to do is an extra-legal search of materials outside their jurisdiction, i.e. in the cloud, in remote servers, etc. I would posit that this is almost always the case, since raiding any tech company would otherwise yield a few printouts and a stack of encrypted laptops. > Are you advocating that employees have the obligation to break the law Absolutely not. The IT employee is probably several time zones away, and is just securing assets not on-site. His team mate will probably provide discovery if/when the police actually request things through a court process. The staff on site should cooperate, whether or not their cooperation has been rendered moot. You aren't suggesting that the police should be able to sit in that office, accessing anything they want on remote servers, indefinitely, right? Why can't the police kick the IT guy's door in and demand an admin login?
    - meiraleal 3y ago
      > What the police often want to do is an extra-legal search of materials outside their jurisdiction, i.e. in the cloud, in remote servers, etc. I would posit that this is almost always the case, since raiding any tech company would otherwise yield a few printouts and a stack of encrypted laptops. Ok, my advice to anyone reading this is that if you find yourself in this situation, help the police get as much information they can about it. Nobody should get in the middle of law enforcers business for a wage, don't risk yourself. > You aren't suggesting that the police should be able to sit in that office, accessing anything they want on remote servers, indefinitely, right? Why can't the police kick the IT guy's door in and demand an admin login? I'm suggesting that if you create/operate a kill switch you might go to jail and it will be for a wage, something that a competent tech person can get anywhere, probably with a better work life balance than a place that is under risk of police raid.

pjerem 3y ago

In theory they are trained to avoid the workers to lock their sessions. I think they can’t do anything if it’s locked anyway but most workers are not loyal enough to their employer to risk being prosecuted for hindering an ongoing investigation. Most workers aren’t involved in anything bad so most of them will not hide proof.

amadeuspagel 3y ago
So business could train employees to do that immidiately when a raid happens, they could even run training sessions (like a fire alarm training where everyone has to pretend it's a real fire, or doesn't even know it's not real), but that would probably raise red flags.
- johndunne 3y ago
  If a business asked me to go on a training session with this in mind, red flag. Big red flag. I think most people would react similarly.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Oh, the joy of being a prosecutor and finding such training material. Case opened and won right away!
    - TheHappyOddish 3y ago
      How so? No data is destroyed, just kept private.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        Hidding information is seen as obstruction, usually illegal in itself, and shows intend behind whatever illegal and anti-trust violations happened... No idea why this is so hard to understand...

Kretinsky 3y ago

You would be suprised by the amount of stuff kept on paper in many offices. Especially by those doing shady things, such as aggressive tax optimization. Having everything online also means that you're at risk of being hacked, whereas if it's in a locked room, you have a lot more control over who accesses the sensitive data.

lm28469 3y ago

Didn't they bust the US president with boxes of top secret documents lying around ? People are much lazier than you think, especially when they think they're better than others and/or above the law. One quick glance at wikileaks will tell you people don't think much when creating/storing/sharing files

somecommit 3y ago

This is the french internet police. As french myself I'm not surprised about this anachronism touch.