Police Return Seized Computers, Trashed

[Alex.]

Same here. What possible reason would the police have for removing the frames from around the floppy disk drives?

You overestimate the intelligence of law enforcement personel. They most likely thought the PSU was the HDD, and that's why it was removed.

 

[JaguarXT]

Same here. What possible reason would the police have for removing the frames from around the floppy disk drives?

Lack of training. Lack of knowledge.
Also maybe the computer case was locked. And the Law didn't know how to get into a locked computer case. Both computer cases looked like the forensics didn't know how to open a locked computer case. Like trying to pry into the drive bays and trying to push in the power supplies (which we see in the bags).

 

[Alex.]

Gah, where is the edit button when I need it most? I meant floppy bay, typo.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

Who gave them permission to search? If you told them not without a warrant then they can't search, unless your "apartment supervisor" has it in the contract that they can have the police search at anytime. Know your laws man.. and stand up for your rights as an American.

No permission was given by anyone. I was in the parking lot answering their questions and should have locked my front door. Sadly, the Lt. in charge only got a reprimand. I was not interested in making a court case out of it, though I should have.

 

[McG2k1]

I guess he expected the cops to wash and wax his torrent server for him.

 

[Hop-Scotch]

He needed a new box anyways. If they take it apart they should put it back together, but they won't, they don't have to.

 

[Maximuss]

Having before shots is ridiculous IMO; The guy didn't know they were gonna come knocking on his door.

Sure you could argue he should've had the foresight to do a photo montage due to what happened to Oink, but he didn't.

 

[untrueparadox]

don't most police departments require cops to take pictures of the site they have a search warrant before seizing property so they can defend themselves against cases like this where the defendant claims the items arent returned in their original condition?

 

[wintermute]

The pigs did this guy a favor.

 

[computerpro3]

Moron should take the ash tray off the table before taking a picture if he's going to bitch about his computers being dirty.

 

[Spidey329]

Look at the house behind the PC. This guy clearly didn't take care of his things. Case closed. Moving on.

 

[mrgstiffler]

According to one of the comments, what British police do in cases like this is make an image of the hard-drive then never touch the system again. Obviously that doesn't even warrant removing any of the other components.

That's what all police do (or are supposed to do). Power is pulled from the machine and the machine is taken as evidence. The examiner removes the hard drive(s) and connects it to an imagine machine through a write-blocker. After the image is taken, the drive is sealed up and stored as evidence. All work is done on the image through forensic software.

 

[mrgstiffler]

That's what all police do (or are supposed to do). Power is pulled from the machine and the machine is taken as evidence. The examiner removes the hard drive(s) and connects it to an imagine machine through a write-blocker. After the image is taken, the drive is sealed up and stored as evidence. All work is done on the image through forensic software.

imaging*

 

[dualxeon64]

I have seen some laptops that look like this, stop smoking in the house take it out side and show your computer some respect.

 

[entropy13]

Those are some pretty amazing detective skills you have there. All you need to see is a PSU outside of a case and you can immediately tell that someone from FACT had a fit of anger and pulled the PSU out in a moment of rage? You should work for the police.

In your case, you should never work for the police. Heck, you shouldn't do any work that requires proper reading. Read the article PROPERLY, 4th to the last paragraph.

It almost appears as if a frustrated FACT employee trashed the hardware on purpose before it was sent back. How else could it turn into such a mess, and why take the computers apart piece by piece in the first place? What were they looking for? Warez?

Or did you just have to conveniently ignore the first few words in my second paragraph, "As the article in the later paragraphs mentions"?

 

[ghost2501]

so all you guys are saying he is a smoker and he dosent take care of his pc so its ok for cops to come in your house now and take your property and damage it? sounds like you are all not caring much about rights or anything. I mean most of you actually said he deserves to have his rights violated by police because he smokes and has a HP- or what ever crap PC?

 

[ianken]

Looks like it sat in a warehouse and all that buildup is from dust and exhaust from the forklifts.

No. It's a smokers rig. See that shit? That's what smokers suck into their lungs.

I worked on enough of those in the Dark Ages of state government intern/IT support purgatory. As another poster noted: just working on them takes your hands go numb. I worked in a hospital and started using latex gloves after the first experience.

But smokers in a hospital? How? In the late 80s in the administration building. That's how. These old hags would sit down in this basement doing accounting stuff while smoking all day. It was fucking nasty. Then (and this is the second worst part) a machine would break and we (interns, mostly college seniors in CS programs) would draw straws on who'd have to go down there and get groped. Seriously. If it were a porn movie they'd be all hot babes. But they were in fact old hags and you needed catlike reflexes to make it out of there with your dignity in tact.

Ugh.

 

[ianken]

so all you guys are saying he is a smoker and he dosent take care of his pc so its ok for cops to come in your house now and take your property and damage it? sounds like you are all not caring much about rights or anything. I mean most of you actually said he deserves to have his rights violated by police because he smokes and has a HP- or what ever crap PC?

No. We're not saying that. What we're saying is that the machine is so fucking nasty that there's not much more the cops could have done to it that he handn't already done thorugh neglect.

Does it suck when authorities abuse private citizens? You bet.

But this is [H] and fuck if I'm going to cry over some abused shitbox of a PC.

 

[Red Falcon]

The police didn't do that. The disassembled state I can pin on them but not the years of nicotine stains and soot that appears in the picture. They couldn't have done that within the time frame the police probably had the machines.

Exactly, that would have to sit on a shelf and be running for years to get that amount of nasty.

 

[Dylan80]

Wow, how can you smoke that much into your PC to get that much tar stain???

There's more than just tobacco in those cigs guys... there's some proof right there.

Other kinds of smoke don't stain like that

 

[Elf_Boy]

I find it hard to believe that people here seem to be okay with the fact that

A) The police had his stuff for 2 years
B) The stuff was returned obviously disassembled and missing components

Who cares whether or not it was gross beforehand? The fact that they returned his previously functioning equipment in a complete state of disrepair is ridiculous. This is one case where I believe a lawsuit is warranted. It's absurd to believe that the police can raid your house and then trash your shit and hold it for 2 years on the suspicion of a crime alone.

I wonder what the depreciation on the value of the equipment was for the 2 year period, eg it was worth X and is now worth Zero.

based on the hard drives being able to be scanned, image copies etc, how and why is it needed to hold the equipment that long? Once you have your digital copy of the HD what else do you need? It is just one more way to harass and 'punish' the person the equipment was taken from.

I can believe people here are supporting the riaa/mpaa.

 

[Pantherboy]

I wonder what the depreciation on the value of the equipment was for the 2 year period, eg it was worth X and is now worth Zero.

based on the hard drives being able to be scanned, image copies etc, how and why is it needed to hold the equipment that long? Once you have your digital copy of the HD what else do you need? It is just one more way to harass and 'punish' the person the equipment was taken from.

I can believe people here are supporting the riaa/mpaa.

well for depreciation I think we all know about the speed technology moves.. As far as after the initial scan.. its still evidence. We have to show the judge that we have the original that the image was made off of. So it still stays with us.. the whole purpose of making an image without altering the original is so a defense attorney can't come in and say "well they accessed the drive and therefore changed the contents of that drive by turning it on." Its a over sized chess game.. so many moves before the final outcome can be determined.

 

[Pantherboy]

And as for supporting the MPAA/RIAA... I feel that they do go "WAY" overboard... so no love there lol.

 

[LightningCrash]

In your case, you should never work for the police. Heck, you shouldn't do any work that requires proper reading. Read the article PROPERLY, 4th to the last paragraph.

Or did you just have to conveniently ignore the first few words in my second paragraph, "As the article in the later paragraphs mentions"?

Odd that you would choose this tack, when you agreed with the article and then went to expound upon its conclusions. Or did you just have to conveniently ignore that he was addressing your post that agreed with the article?

If you had said "The article says <this>, but that's likely just a load of bollocks," then your "RTFA noob jesus" post would be appropriate, but given that you agreed with them you are removed from such a ridiculous defense.

 

[adurn03]

I've seen a clients laptop that was seized be returned with the LCD completely cracked and shattered. The desktop also had giant dents and dings.

Don't know if it occurred in transit or not, though.

 

[Tordek]

I'm almost sure I've seen these images before. Much much before.
I believe this is just trolling and not actual news.

 

[DocSavage]

Unless I'm mistaken, someone did some custom work on that machine at some time. I don't think those are stock rounded PATA cables.

Also, as someone mentioned hard to open cases, I too have had cases where I couldn't figure out the trick to opening them and ended up breaking pieces. (I work at a charity and we get a lot of old donated machines)