Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Data, data - who's got the data?

Co-blogger and brother-from-another-mother ASM826 and I keep harping on how you should back up your data.  Like the saying goes about personal defense firearms, two is one and one is none.  More copies of your important data is better, because things go wrong sometimes.

So who do we know doesn't read this blog?  The New York Police Department:
A non-profit organization in NYC called Bronx Defenders wants to study the NYPD’s asset forfeiture records. They filed a request for this information (under New York’s Freedom of Information law) in 2014, and litigation is ongoing. 
The latest revelation? Not only is the NYPD saying they don’t have the technical capability to pull the data Bronx Defenders wants…
New York City is one power surge away from losing all of the data police have on millions of dollars in unclaimed forfeitures, a city attorney admitted to a flabbergasted judge on Tuesday.

Of course, it might be convenient for them to "lose" this data if a Court were to make them give it all back.


3 comments:

  1. Matt WOctober 25, 2017 at 11:01 AM

    Exactly, the lack of backups of that data is a feature, not a bug. "Sorry but due to a system crash we are unable to identify or allocate these unclaimed funds. We should just get the keep it all"

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 25, 2017 at 11:18 AM

    Thanks for the link, brother man.

    The worst/most annoying aspect of this story, to me, isn't that they don't have backups: it is that they can't seem to keep their story straight.

    "In response to reporting that the Property and Evidence Tracking System (PETS) did not have database backups, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Stephen Davis said via e-mail, "Contrary to some published reports suggesting that NYPD does not electronically back up the data in its Property and Evidence Tracking System (PETS), all such data is backed up continuously in multiple data centers."
    That statement would appear to be in direct conflict with an affidavit filed by city attorneys (PDF) in the case, in which NYPD Director of Strategic Technology Programs Christian Schnedler stated, "Currently, there is no secondary or back-up system, and no repository of the data in PETS outside of PETS itself."

    At this point, if I were the judge in the case, I'd be inclined to order the NYPD to produce all the requested data within 48 hours. And if they didn't, I'd start throwing deputy commissioners and other high-ranking officers in jail for contempt of court until they did produce the data.

    ==stainles

    ReplyDelete
  3. ChrisOctober 26, 2017 at 5:31 AM

    In the past, the NYPD would have periodic fires or floods in records storage rooms or evidence lockers.

    ReplyDelete

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