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I had to rebuild a significant percentage of my homelab after my house was raided by the police and they took about $10k-worth of my gear; desktop, laptop, NAS,

I had to rebuild a significant percentage of my homelab after my house was raided by the police and they took about $10k-worth of my gear; desktop, laptop, NAS, hard drives. However, because in a previous life I'd been responsible for backups and involved in disaster recovery planning I was already kind of prepared with: - a mirrored on site copy of backups (that they either didn't find or chose to leave behind) - older hardware that had once been performing the duties of the existing seized gear (I'm a bit of a hoarder, I like repurposing or keeping for just such an occasion) - multiple off site backups - pretty good documentation of my setup I was back up and running within a day or two and had lost maybe a couple of days of data. And it's a home lab, so nothing super important anyway, but a (not really) nice resilience test. It also gave me the experience to work out a few structural changes to further limit the impact of an event that takes out a bunch of processing and storage. (After 8 months they told me to pick up all my gear, they found nothing, but thanks for traumatising my kids)

bapak 1y ago
Why did they raid you?
- BLKNSLVR 1y ago
  Short version: Possibly the worst thing to be raided for: distribution of CSAM. Apparently based purely on the 'evidence' of my IP address being on some list - that's the only explanation I ever got. Funny thing is, they did so little background research they didn't even know to expect kids in the house when they raided at 6:30am. It still triggers me. This was in August 2022. I wrote pages and pages of my memories and thoughts about it, and it still makes me angry for about ten different reasons. The long version I haven't written yet and probably never will. I don't want to dwell on it, I want to get on with my life and have an even worse drama to deal with at the moment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44533637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44533637 I know I'm alive, that's for sure. I'm trying to make lemonade by the goddamn bucket load. P.S. I have written prior HN comments referring to the raid if you care enough to go back that far.
  - 725686 1y ago
    In the USA? Where you can be sued if someone slips on your sidewalk? Can't you sue the gvmt?
    - toast0 1y ago
      You can sue the government, but the grounds for winning are much narrower. Meerly suffering harm from government action is not sufficient. Having property impounded as part of an investigation, pursuant to a warrant, is likely not actionable, unless there was malice involved. Using slim evidence isn't really actionable.
    - Muromec 1y ago
      Why would you be able to sue the government for conducting a search authorized by a judge? It's expected that result of some searches is "Oopsie doopsie nothing found".
      - TimorousBestie 1y ago
        It’s even worse than that, in the US police have broad latitude to destroy property, kill pets, seize any cash or assets (theoretically related to the crime, but very easy to abuse) and etc. while executing a search, with little to no recourse.
        dylan604 1y ago
        Not just kill pets, but kill people. Even if they raided the wrong home.
        TimorousBestie 1y ago
        Yeah, it’s true.
      - colechristensen 1y ago
        You could sue if they made some major mistakes or were fabricating evidence or some other significant malpractice. It's a pretty high bar.
- sans_souse 1y ago
  I woulda just left it at "screen name checks out"
  - BLKNSLVR 1y ago
    Yeah, BLKNSLVR came from "Black and Silver" based on some crappy piece of art I did way long ago. It wasn't until using it as an in-game handle that a friend read it out to me as "Black Enslaver" that I even realised it could read another way. I don't like that it can be interpreted that way, but I also refuse to stop using it since that's someone else's reading. The only factor I use to treat one human different from another is whether they're a jerk or not, and I have to know them well enough to work that out. I've come across a few jerks in my time, and they take many and varied forms.
    - sans_souse 1y ago
      Thank you for the explanation! I totally forgot about this, and I appreciate the clarification. Now I can read your screen name as its meant to be. Btw if I came off like a jerk - not at all my intent. My brain made the association and I couldn't unthink it

bapak 1y ago

Why did they raid you?

BLKNSLVR 1y ago
Short version: Possibly the worst thing to be raided for: distribution of CSAM. Apparently based purely on the 'evidence' of my IP address being on some list - that's the only explanation I ever got. Funny thing is, they did so little background research they didn't even know to expect kids in the house when they raided at 6:30am. It still triggers me. This was in August 2022. I wrote pages and pages of my memories and thoughts about it, and it still makes me angry for about ten different reasons. The long version I haven't written yet and probably never will. I don't want to dwell on it, I want to get on with my life and have an even worse drama to deal with at the moment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44533637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44533637 I know I'm alive, that's for sure. I'm trying to make lemonade by the goddamn bucket load. P.S. I have written prior HN comments referring to the raid if you care enough to go back that far.
- 725686 1y ago
  In the USA? Where you can be sued if someone slips on your sidewalk? Can't you sue the gvmt?
  - toast0 1y ago
    You can sue the government, but the grounds for winning are much narrower. Meerly suffering harm from government action is not sufficient. Having property impounded as part of an investigation, pursuant to a warrant, is likely not actionable, unless there was malice involved. Using slim evidence isn't really actionable.
  - Muromec 1y ago
    Why would you be able to sue the government for conducting a search authorized by a judge? It's expected that result of some searches is "Oopsie doopsie nothing found".
    - TimorousBestie 1y ago
      It’s even worse than that, in the US police have broad latitude to destroy property, kill pets, seize any cash or assets (theoretically related to the crime, but very easy to abuse) and etc. while executing a search, with little to no recourse.
      - dylan604 1y ago
        Not just kill pets, but kill people. Even if they raided the wrong home.
        TimorousBestie 1y ago
        Yeah, it’s true.
    - colechristensen 1y ago
      You could sue if they made some major mistakes or were fabricating evidence or some other significant malpractice. It's a pretty high bar.
sans_souse 1y ago
I woulda just left it at "screen name checks out"
- BLKNSLVR 1y ago
  Yeah, BLKNSLVR came from "Black and Silver" based on some crappy piece of art I did way long ago. It wasn't until using it as an in-game handle that a friend read it out to me as "Black Enslaver" that I even realised it could read another way. I don't like that it can be interpreted that way, but I also refuse to stop using it since that's someone else's reading. The only factor I use to treat one human different from another is whether they're a jerk or not, and I have to know them well enough to work that out. I've come across a few jerks in my time, and they take many and varied forms.
  - sans_souse 1y ago
    Thank you for the explanation! I totally forgot about this, and I appreciate the clarification. Now I can read your screen name as its meant to be. Btw if I came off like a jerk - not at all my intent. My brain made the association and I couldn't unthink it