National Archives Offers Big Reward For Lost HDD

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Remember that hard drive we told you about yesterday that went missing from the National Archives? There is a $50,000 reward now, making it THE most valuable Western Digital My Book external hard drive in the world. :D

It was discovered missing in late March, prompting a thorough search for the small, 2.5 pound device, the Archives said. When it could not be located, the inspector general's office opened a criminal investigation. On Wednesday, the Archives announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to its return.
Click to expand...
 
Pretty stupid way to back up everything apparently so critical...plopped onto a portable drive and left on a shelf. Must have been the Bush administrations way of deleting history.
 
godfetish said:
Pretty stupid way to back up everything apparently so critical...plopped onto a portable drive and left on a shelf. Must have been the Bush administrations way of deleting history.
Click to expand...

Cool, you managed to turn this into a soapbox within the first post. :rolleyes:
 
nyTroX said:
Anybody check Sandy Berger's shorts yet?
Click to expand...

He wasn't around then, but he was my first suspect till I saw the date. Still suspecting Bush or his administration since they knew they were going to be out of work for a little while.
 
where do my tax dollars go if this stuff isnt at least backed up to tape and archived properly/securely? a damn WD my book? on a shelf? probably unlabled too? cmon!
 
How is it even possible to loose something like that? They should be doing backups properly. Must be important with that kind of bounty now.
 
Any information regarding the government is worth much more than $50,000. I'm still surprised someone was able to get a hard drive out of the archive.
 
Hey I found the harddrive, but I accidentally formated it and wrote random 1's and 0's across the whole drive 8 times. Can I still get the $50k?
 
Wonder how hardcore the person that actually brings the HDD in mention to them, to get the reward is going to get reamed with God knows how many hours of interigation before they get the money.
Hey maybe that $50,000 will go towards the persons bail?
 
Kind of funny that they're offering this kind of reward when you consider the fact that recovering the drive is absolutely pointless once all the data is copied elsewhere.
 
TechieSooner said:
That's just the cover story.

The truth is that the cleaning crew probably threw it in the trash by accident.
Click to expand...

This does not compute. How can you say truth and probably in the same sentence?

hl3395 said:
Hey I found the harddrive, but I accidentally formated it and wrote random 1's and 0's across the whole drive 8 times. Can I still get the $50k?
Click to expand...

A friend of a friend works for a data recovery company. If you shot a hard drive, they can recover the data from where the bullet went through. Don't ask me how they do that because that is way beyond my education.
 
protias said:
A friend of a friend works for a data recovery company. If you shot a hard drive, they can recover the data from where the bullet went through. Don't ask me how they do that because that is way beyond my education.
Click to expand...

I find that one a little hard to believe.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
You can't get something out of nothing.

Ask him to complete the great zero challenge.
Click to expand...
:eek:

Wow. I'd think since so many security firms and security software says "Data can be recovered if written by zeros! Buy our software to write random data!", those same firms refuse to recover it?? hmmm...

Methinks maybe that whole argument has been blown out of proportion. Come to think of it, I've never actually seen evidence of someone recovering stuff off a zero-filled drive, I've always based my opinions on the hear-say as well.

protias said:
This does not compute. How can you say truth and probably in the same sentence?
Click to expand...
Simple. The TRUTH is something other than what was quoted, and is PROBABLY something else.

People who nit pick grammar or "proper" english drive me nuts :rolleyes:

protias said:
A friend of a friend works for a data recovery company. If you shot a hard drive, they can recover the data from where the bullet went through. Don't ask me how they do that because that is way beyond my education.
Click to expand...
If true (I highly doubt that... Can your friend tell us how it works?) I'd guess they cannot actually recover it. My guess is that they can gather other information from the files around the physical area as well as the logical ones (IE, fragmented stuff) to "guess" at what was there.
 
Actually, thinking about that "Zero" challenge, I think part of the issue may be that nobody in their right mind will spend the time for just a $40 reward that some individual has posted.....
 
TechieSooner said:
Actually, thinking about that "Zero" challenge, I think part of the issue may be that nobody in their right mind will spend the time for just a $40 reward that some individual has posted.....
Click to expand...

$500 reward and they will be recognized as a king of data recover... so consider that some major free publicity. And you get to keep the drive.

Most companies and people say "it's super easy to recover a zero wipe", it's time to put their money where their mouths are.
 
Ockie said:
$500 reward and they will be recognized as a king of data recover... so consider that some major free publicity. And you get to keep the drive.

Most companies and people say "it's super easy to recover a zero wipe", it's time to put their money where their mouths are.
Click to expand...

It'd be like me proclaiming you the king of data recovery... It's pretty meaningless not coming from a well known authrity.

I see where it says $500 though. On one of their screenshots it still says $40.
$500 isn't bad then. If it IS super easy, since you're only recovering 1 item, I'd imagine you could recover it within an hour of labor. $500/hr isn't bad.
 
I think the bullet hole recovery is somewhat possible as its likely that while the actual information on the missing part is gone, there is likely some portion of existing information that references in some clear way the missing content well enough to rebuild some of it

the zero challenge is interesting, but I'll contine to do my multipass random write/wipe and hammer (cause thats the fun part)
 
TechieSooner said:
It'd be like me proclaiming you the king of data recovery... It's pretty meaningless not coming from a well known authrity.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter if the problem is thought in general to be a difficult one and one that is respected throughout the community. Even if you were told by the Pope himself that you were the king of data recovery, many people still wouldn't care because they don't give a shit about data recovery.

It's like if some random kid working under some random math teacher solved the Goldbach conjecture. It wouldn't matter if it's just "some guy" that recognized it as a great accomplishment, because the mathematics community as a whole recognizes it as such.
 
TechieSooner said:
That's just the cover story.

The truth is that the cleaning crew probably threw it in the trash by accident.
Click to expand...


You know, the sad things is . . . that could be true.

But I think they would probably try to just cover it up if that was the case, and not bother putting up a reward for 50K. Then again. . .
 
thewooster said:
You know, the sad things is . . . that could be true.

But I think they would probably try to just cover it up if that was the case, and not bother putting up a reward for 50K. Then again. . .
Click to expand...

If they know the drive is gone, why not offer a reward for it? Makes them "look" like they're trying to recover the "stolen" hard drive after months of failed "extensive" investigation.
 
I must have missed something.

The data is not gone, or lost, it was a copy on a drive that vanished, while they were doing a transcription project to modernize the storage methods.

All this whining, but I don't hear a thing about the hundreds of thousands of missing emails, channeled through the RNC's own email server, used by the Bush administration to circumvent the Government Records laws?

Or the vanishing of hundreds of hours of VIDEO tape of torture sessions and interrogations conducted by the CIA that magically disappeared?

Or the records from Homeland Security on the number of and identities of the H1B and other Visa programs, which now Customs has no fucking idea how many they gave out and to whom.... so hundreds of thousands of illegal visa grantee's can't be traced or deported..... not to mention the 2-3 million without visa's that just walked in from MeHeeCo every friggin year.

Etc, etc.

But the Sandy Burger jokes are really funny.
 
Maybe someone mistook it for a MyBook DVR Expander, took it home, plugged it to their Tivo, and when it failed to work, junked it. Or they opened up their tivo to manually marry the drives and have now written over all the data with sitcoms. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top