Too slow! FBI Shuts Down Hosting Service

Chope writes "If FBI agents showed up at your data center bearing a warrant, would you be able to provide them prompt access to customer data? BZZZZT! I'm sorry, but you've taken too long to answer. We'll be confiscating all the hardware you use, er, used to use, to run your business. But we'll get it back to you 'real soon now.' Thank you for playing. CarrierHotels.com is carrying the story of a FBI raid on a web hosting company. When the hosting company didn't and/or couldn't provide the information the FBI was looking from its several terabytes of data within "several hours", the FBI decided it was more "efficient" to seize all the web servers and customer data as part of the FBI's investigation of a hacking incident."

All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[Anonymous Coward]

someone had to say it..

But... But... But

[Anonymous Coward]

"if you don't have anything to hide or have not done anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about[TM]"

or something like that? I wonder how their other clients feel?

FBI??

[Ratface]

If the FBI shoed up at my door... there would be a hell of an international incident as I live in Sweden (you insensitive clod!)

Website of Mass Destruction?

[ka9dgx]

What were they looking for, a Website of Mass Destruction [whitehouse.gov] or something?

--Mike--

Nazis? - I hate Illinois Nazis

What kind of sick joke is this?

[elchulopadre]

First their webserver farm gets seized by the FBI, then you post their story on /. ??? Give these guys a break!

Re:Over the top anyone?

[BigDork1001]

This is the US we're talking about. We sue everyone for everything. In fact I just might sue you for implying we wouldn't sue.

Steve Jackson Games

[riqnevala]

At least they were not about to publish "a handbook for computer crime".

Think twice before connecting that modem...

DOS

[MikeFarrington]

Ironically, they were probably investigating a Denial Of Service.

Re:Assholes.

[MooCows]

Nah, if this were 1984, the hosting company would gladly hand over the servers.

Re:How about the sustained financial damage?

[vanillacoke]

Yes but buildings aren't constantly evolving and revolving of capitalism At one point it's still a box containing stuff you sell. People will still come back and 1 day hit is minimal at best to finances. (Ex: You sell bred. Your store is closed down. Your bread will still be there tomorrow) Online service companies OTOH have contacts to hold up. They must compensate for when they are down on their end. ( Ex: funnywittyp0rnname.com sells a service, they having income coming in and must continue to provide services at any giving time on the internet (for people um, who want porn at 3:30 in the afternoon). No porn, that guy now has to break the law and download for free of kazza. Net loss both parties (Legal porn, source of revenue))

Re:The FBI is already returning some equipment...

[MooCows]

Hey, can I have the FBI move all my stuff for free too? :)

Re:All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[LittleBigLui]

someone had to say it..

... and judging by the finely crafted grammar, bush did. :)

Just FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you declare a jihad on the /. moderators, note that he wasn't modded down to -1, just that he posts at -1 by default. Check the comment history.

Re:Assholes.

[teamhasnoi]

Nah, if this were 1984, the hosting company would gladly hand over the servers.

Not to mention you could've just used a box of floppies to copy the hard drives.

Re:Threat?

[Chundra]

Abdul, Mohammed, Mustafa Ali, greetings! The goat is roasted. I repeat, the goat is roasted. Run! Run like the great camel to tell Uncle.

Re:Hey Ted! What's this Magic Lantern icon for?

[Niet3sche]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been any discussion of Magic Lantern for awhile...

Oh there has ... those members have just been dragged off, beaten, and then killed.

I really shouldn't attempt humor before breakfast. :-/

Re:Returning Equipment

[back_pages]

Don't go and ruin this for the rest of us! We have our torches, we have our pitchforks. We've decided to discard our individual responsibility and replace our own thoughts with groupthink! Damn it, man, don't ruin this for the rest of us with your petty "details" and "facts"! This is no time for the voice of reason. No time at all!!!!

Re:FBI??

[suwain_2]

If the FBI shoed up at my door...

For a minute I thought you were going to say you lived in Holland.

Re:All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[Anonymous Coward]

>Did you vote in the last election?

Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos^H^H^H^H^HGore

Re:They had a warrant

[Hittite Creosote]

we are the most free, most law-abiding country in the world.

No, you're not. Finland is.

Sounds like a good reason to mirror

[McFly777]

If you are a data center, this sounds like another good reason to have a mirror (RAID 0, or is it RAID 1). That way you can just unplug the mirror drive and give it to the FBI without disturbing the rest of your service.

Actually this makes the acronym RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Devices) have dual meaning... RAID is what you want when you are raided!

Re:All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[Anonymous Coward]

1,$s/1337/english/g

Re:They had good reasons to shut them down, indeed

[AndroidCat]

there was thousands of DDOS "drones" located at the datacenter

Doing it in-house sounds so old fashioned. They should look into out-sourcing like spammers have been doing with under-utilizied home Windows computers. Does anyone have contact information for the people who did MyDoom.A and .B? I might have a deal lined up involving a few hundred thousand dollars of business. (I could use the reward money.)

You Fail It!

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas poor goatse, I knew him well.

Re:USA politics = one party system?

[sketerpot]

Why on earth would they give any power away, ever?

Love of freedom and democracy, and caring about the rights of the people? *snort*

Re:How about the sustained financial damage?

[chrisbtoo]

Do they close the several-block-radios for ten days?

Damn, that's a big radio.

Re:All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[fm6]

Waco, Ruby Ridge, Elvis... it's all the same!

Re:All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[ragefan]

There's three kinds of people in the world. Cops, perps, and perps who haven't been caught. Power corrupts, but power without accountability is an awful lot of fun.

If you're in college, consider majoring in Criminal Justice and joining the winning side. You can be under the gun, or you can hold the gun. Better to be a killer than a victim.

Then there is only 2 types of people: perps, and perps who haven't been caught. Cops being the latter.

Re:All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[Pig Hogger]

What ever happenned to Dan Quayle????

Re:All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[Rolo Tomasi]

Powerline internet?

Re:All Your Rights Are Belong To Ashcroft

[Rick the Red]

it is only a matter of time before O.J. finds the real killers

Who must be in Florida, since that's where he's looking.

There's an easy solution to this problem!

[Bob Davis, Retired]

Steel doors, three feet thick slam closed sealing off the datacenter. Have all the computers in a vault. Single entry door (now covered by three feet of steel), and sets of quintuple, automatically locking one-way exit doors for the techs in the vault. When the FBI comes, push the Red Button. The vault main doors close, and the techs descend fire poles, with foot thick steel apertures closing off the vertical entrances. Then they file out of the escape doors, into the basement of the administrative facility. When the all clear is sounded (via radio-frequency tags embedded in employee ID tags) and everyone is out of the vault, epoxy resin is force-injected into the space between the quintuple evacuation doors.

Anyway, these places usually have gobs of venture capital. What the FUCK are they spending it on, pool tables and nerf guns?