Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

Here's a thought: what if 'Yahoo gives FBI snapshots' is actually parallel construction, but Yahoo are not allowed (under PATRIOT or whatever) to admit the extent of their cooperation with three letter agencies (for instance, that they hand over everything they see without requests being made). Do they have to refuse to comply with the court?

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#5

Post by HarryHirsch » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

Data retention is negotiated and spelled out in detail in NDAs for contract research organizations. It's easy to delete data from servers once a project is done, but the backup tapes also have copies. You can't throw the tapes out, because the company needs them, hence there are agreements what happens to the data and tapes, and nowadays these are standard practice.

This is a solved problem in the real world, but some companies would have us think it's the Wild West, when in fact it isn't.

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#6

Post by gaius » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #2

I'm curious if there will be blowback on Internet email companies if it turns out the emails were not deleted, just archived away from user's access.

If you ever see an auto-complete feature on a website, it's probable that that website is logging every keystroke. If you type "thermal detonators" into Google, but never actually click the button, it's still flagged up aboard the Imperial Command Ship.

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#7

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #2

I'm curious if there will be blowback on Internet email companies if it turns out the emails were not deleted, just archived away from user's access.

[deleted]

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#8

Post by codemogul » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 3:09 PM UTC

Relevant and coincidental personal anecdote: 10 years ago I caught my x-wife in an affair as she was using this same method the communicate with her lover. Her choice of email address for the shared account raised alarms on my firewall, so it was a simple matter to track to her machine. While she had gone to the similar trouble to delete all records on Yahoo (coincidentally), she had been browsing with IE which, due to some off-line setting, was cacheing locally all of the pages she had written. It was simply a matter of laying hands on her laptop and downloading all of that cache to expose the ruse.

I cannot find the article, but I believe this method of sharing access to one e-mail account to many parties was one of the comms methods employed by the 9/11 terrorists, pioneered by Columbian drug lords.

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#9

Post by TechnicalVault » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #5

Data retention is negotiated and spelled out in detail in NDAs for contract research organizations. It's easy to delete data from servers once a project is done, but the backup tapes also have copies. You can't throw the tapes out, because the company needs them, hence there are agreements what happens to the data and tapes, and nowadays these are standard practice. This is a solved problem in the real world, but som…

The solution with backup tapes is obvious, you encrypt the files on the tapes with session keys and encrypt a copy of the session key with a client/project or project key stored on a separate random access medium. When the project needs to be deleted you destroy the key for that project, job done. The most difficult bit is enforcing the proper ownership and location of files so that you know which ones belong to which project. More complicated schemes can sllow files to be shared between projects but the basic principle remains the same.

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#10

Post by keketi » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

codemogul wrote: post #8

Relevant and coincidental personal anecdote: 10 years ago I caught my x-wife in an affair as she was using this same method the communicate with her lover. Her choice of email address for the shared account raised alarms on my firewall, so it was a simple matter to track to her machine. While she had gone to the similar trouble to delete all records on Yahoo (coincidentally), she had been browsing with IE which, due…

David Petraeus and his mistress were using the same trick: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12...