Hahaha, another crashed hard drive...

In the 60s, we lied and kept no records

In the 70s we lied on tape (Watergate)

In the 80s, we said "I don't recall." (Iran-Contra)

In the 90s, we said, "I lied to my diary" (Altman in the Whitewater scandal)

In the 2010s we say, "My hard drive crashed."

Roll Tide

The hard drive on my work laptop crashed a few weeks ago. They replaced a 160 HD with a 256 SSD. It's verra nice.

The dog ate my homework also

Maury, it can't be mine- it don't look like me.

gmart74 said:

Maury, it can't be mine- it don't look like me.

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We've replaced the coffee they usually serve here with Folgers crystals.

latest irs story to break

DOJ and FBI still havent interviewed the group that was targeted. the question i have for the obama supporters is this: how much further along the line of being a banana republic/fascist state will it take before even you have had enough?

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/156975-group-center-irs-scandal-never-interviewed-fbi-investigators/

When I raised Holder’s assertion to Engelbrecht Monday morning during an interview on WMAL radio in Washington, DC, I asked her what her involvement and experience has been with the FBI and the DOJ, considering Holder’s claim that they were doing a “good and professional job” investigating the IRS scandal.

“That would be exactly ‘no.’ Zero. at no time have they approached us. Only when they are investigating us. Only when they are being adversarial towards us do we ever hear anything from the Department of Justice. There has been no outreach to try and get to the bottom of the scandal at any time. “

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gmart74 said:

latest irs story to break

DOJ and FBI still havent interviewed the group that was targeted. the question i have for the obama supporters is this: how much further along the line of being a banana republic/fascist state will it take before even you have had enough?

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/156975-group-center-irs-scandal-never-interviewed-fbi-investigators/

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Ruh roh. Some buddy's fixin' to get a snarky reply about persecution, Faux News-fueled outrage and Fema re-education camps.

Why would they want to interview True the Vote?

ValuJet said:

Ruh roh. Some buddy's fixin' to get a snarky reply about persecution, Faux News-fueled outrage and Fema re-education camps.

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why by golly.. that's........wait for it......... rashist!!!!

Perhaps we should reallocate some of the money designated for healthcare to pay for improved technology and tech support for our federal government. There seem to be lots of hard drive and mail server failures these days. Upgrades may be in order.

tidefanbeezer said:

Perhaps we should reallocate some of the money designated for healthcare to pay for improved technology and tech support for our federal government. There seem to be lots of hard drive and mail server failures these days. Upgrades may be in order.

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A more technically proficient government? I think not. It certainly wouldn't mean greater efficiency and cost savings for those few of us who actually pay taxes. Making it harder for government to "work" and making it harder for government to know anything about us are more desirable outcomes in my opinion.

Crashed hard drives typically have recoverable data, presuming they are not destroyed; however, emails are typically stored on the Exchange server until a person decides to archive them (usually due to the Exchange server advising them they are running out of space) or delete them.

I find it odd that they aren't scouring every hard drive. I know the IRS is large, but an email always has a sender and receiver, so at least two people have a copy most of the time. The Exchange server, presuming it isn't ancient, should have the metadata for each email, like so:

The date and time of the message event.
The IP address of the messaging server or client that submitted the message.
The name of the messaging server or messaging client that submitted the message.
The IP address of the source or destination server running Microsoft Exchange.
The name of the destination server.
The message event type.
An internal message identifier assigned by the Exchange server processing the message.
A message ID found in the message header.
Recipient address(es).
The size of the message.
The number of recipients receiving the message.
The message subject.
The sender address.


Those logs can be deleted, but there's no reason to do so except to hide something (the space used to capture that snippet of data is so minuscule it's barely worth mentioning), which would not only raise red flags but would incorporate a need to subpoena the entire IT department.

Tide1986 said:

A more technically proficient government? I think not. It certainly wouldn't mean greater efficiency and cost savings for those few of us who actually pay taxes. Making it harder for government to "work" and making it harder for government to know anything about us are more desirable outcomes in my opinion.

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Which reminds me of this quote from one of my favorite journalists:

You say we [reporters] are distracting from the business of government. Well, I hope so. Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby. -- P. J. O'Rourke

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bamachile said:

Which reminds me of this quote from one of my favorite journalists:

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You say we [reporters] are distracting from the business of government. Well, I hope so. Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby. -- P. J. O'Rourke

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skrayper77 said:

Crashed hard drives typically have recoverable data, presuming they are not destroyed; however, emails are typically stored on the Exchange server until a person decides to archive them (usually due to the Exchange server advising them they are running out of space) or delete them.

I find it odd that they aren't scouring every hard drive. I know the IRS is large, but an email always has a sender and receiver, so at least two people have a copy most of the time. The Exchange server, presuming it isn't ancient, should have the metadata for each email, like so:

The date and time of the message event.
The IP address of the messaging server or client that submitted the message.
The name of the messaging server or messaging client that submitted the message.
The IP address of the source or destination server running Microsoft Exchange.
The name of the destination server.
The message event type.
An internal message identifier assigned by the Exchange server processing the message.
A message ID found in the message header.
Recipient address(es).
The size of the message.
The number of recipients receiving the message.
The message subject.
The sender address.


Those logs can be deleted, but there's no reason to do so except to hide something (the space used to capture that snippet of data is so minuscule it's barely worth mentioning), which would not only raise red flags but would incorporate a need to subpoena the entire IT department.

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Huge assumption - can go down the list of archaic equipment used by governments everywhere, no reason to think theirs aren't dinosaurs as well. As slow as the fed bureaucracy is, doesn't seem reasonable they would be able to keep up with technological advances that most private companies can't/won't keep up with.
As you say, unless the hard drive is physically destroyed (or demagnetized?) the data is recoverable; may take some time and money but it can be recovered, unless it was intentionally wiped. There is software available that can wipe a hard drive clean (well, not clean I don't think, but it overwrites the existing data so many times with garbage the original data is unrecoverable- I think is how it works. Those actively working in IT now can verify or correct.)

Remember, it all comes from the lowest bidder!