It sounds like the FBI "acted stupidly" but the guy was no saint. In this thread he gives customer service that actually makes AT&T look good:
http://voip.yuku.com/reply/421/t/Re-premiervoice-net-aka-pvo...
Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#12His story is, sadly, very plausible. Has anyone made a serious case that he's lying?
Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#13I think a lot of people will be moving their hosting out of the US because of this. Unbelievable abuse of power and a total lack of understanding of the nature of this business. To do this much damage without a shred of evidence is absolutely unforgivable. The fact that the guy basically assumes that he'll go to prison because he refuses to admit guilt to stuff that he didn't do is quite telling. So much for justice.…
If your servers are hosted overseas, the FBI can probably ask local law enforcement (via some treaty) to seize everything. http://www.eff.org/cases/indymedia-server-takedown/
I highly doubt that the dutch police would seize an entire datacenter on some trumped up charges. Such cowboy actions are very rare here, in fact I don't recall a single instance of such a thing.
An employee of mine once did some very stupid stuff from our corporate network and premises and the police was very reasonable about it.
The quote you give is about some log files from a server in Italy (and fails to detail whether or not they were handed over), we're talking about seizing an entire datacenter here including all the customers machines (plenty of which were government boxes). Hundreds of businesses were ruined on the say so of some junkie.
Disproportional doesn't even begin to describe it.
Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#14It sounds like the FBI "acted stupidly" but the guy was no saint. In this thread he gives customer service that actually makes AT&T look good: http://voip.yuku.com/reply/421/t/Re-premiervoice-net-aka-pvo...
I don't think his post is that bad. Not nice, but sometimes you need to fire your bad customers.
Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#15I think the problem is the lack of accountability on the govenrment's part. If the leaders of FBI field offices routinely went to jail for raiding data centers unnecessarily (etc.), you can bet that they'd be more careful. But since there is no punishment for ruining someone's life, they are just going to continue to ruin lives. The false negative rate doesn't matter, as long as they occasionally stop a real crime, everyone gets promotions.
(That's my understanding anyway.)
Also, it is unacceptable that nobody will represent this guy in court. As far as I know, the Constitution guarantees a trial and representation at that trial. If he can't get either, then his civil rights are being illegally violated. (Judges may not understand the Internet, but they do understand the Constitution. Well, except for a few people on the SCOTUS that really need to learn how to read...)
Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#16It'd be nice to see the "other side" of the story first. Perhaps that is just the cynic in me :)
It does seem an extreme approach!
Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#17Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#18I think a lot of people will be moving their hosting out of the US because of this. Unbelievable abuse of power and a total lack of understanding of the nature of this business. To do this much damage without a shred of evidence is absolutely unforgivable. The fact that the guy basically assumes that he'll go to prison because he refuses to admit guilt to stuff that he didn't do is quite telling. So much for justice.…
At FOWA Edinburgh, Stefan Magdalinski mentioned that MOO had moved their hosting to the US (from the UK) in order to improve google rankings. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it.
Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#19If this is a clear cut case of an innocent victim why not call the eff this seems like it is right up their ally?
Re: Dallas data center raided by the FBI based on false claims by former employee
#20His story is, sadly, very plausible. Has anyone made a serious case that he's lying?
Some of the (extensive) reddit comments on the story cast a reasonably amount of doubt on his claims. Unfortunately there's just too many of them for me to be able to quickly summarise the various bits and pieces.
On a side note, I only stopped by to see if reddit had reached digg parity - not there yet, but I'm increasingly glad that I left.
(I nearly used "e-migrated" instead of "left" - and that's just from 5-10 minutes of exposure)