FBI Raids CORE IP Networks

All customer servers seized

[incrediBILL]

In the lovely police state we've become your business could go offline instantly if the FBI seizes your servers in an unwarranted raid:

CBS 11 News has learned that the raid is part of a general criminal investigation. Because of the confiscation of computers at Core IP Networks, a number of legitimate businesses have been affected.

[cbs11tv.com...]

Could you imagine waking up one fine morning and your server wasn't just down, it was GONE!, somewhere bouncing around in an FBI van?

Imagine if WebmasterWorld had hosted at Core!

This may all be tied to a leak of the new movie Wolverine:

"Quite a few companies I do business with are completely screwed and losing money thanks to this," says the user, who claims the impacted companies told him the raid was Wolverine related. We've been unable to confirm this, since the FBI won't comment.

[dslreports.com...]

Here's a quote from the owner of Core IP:

The FBI has seized all equipment belonging to our customers. Many customers went to the data center to try and retrieve their equipment, but were threatened with arrest.

[sites.google.com...]

Apparently search and seizure laws have been suspended for your servers if someone suspects you pirate a movie, totally outrageous.

For online business owners this kind of civil rights violation would be devastating as most of them couldn't muster up a complete backup if their life depended on it.

Think about this long and hard, could you get your site back online in a day if your server was subject to some random government seizure of an entire hosting company?

If the answer is NO, this is your wake up call.

[Wlauzon]

In fact, the raid was not related to any movie, but to a million dollar+ VOIP scam.

[dslreports.com...]

Not saying that the FBI was not a bit (OK, a lot) heavy handed but it does appear to at least be a legitimate bust.

[edited by: Wlauzon at 9:01 am (utc) on April 8, 2009]

[incrediBILL]

Being a legitimate bust was never the issue IMO.

Having your online business confiscated without a warrant on YOUR company is the part that bothers me.

It still begs the question, if this happened to you, could you recover your business within the day or would your livelihood still be help hostage by the FBI?

[kaled]

Since I live in the UK, I try to avoid criticizing such incidents, however, this does seem to be bang out of order. Surely, an appropriate response would be to close down the data center, copy all hard drives, and then put the data center back online. Obviously this would have taken much longer (maybe 24 hours) but might be cheaper and quicker in the long run.

Unless the FBI have immunity in such matters, I see a court case or two on the horizon.

Kaled.

[BradleyT]

They most likely have immunity. They also probably need the actual physical devices that contain the data, not just some random backup which could easily be defended against.

[maximillianos]

Yet another case for keeping updated local backups... How do you explain that one to the bank when they come for your home because you can no longer make house payments...

"Well you see, the government, I mean the F-B-I, they raided our ISP and took our server. We were not guilty of anything, but they took our server anyway... So that meant our website went offline, which meant our business was gone... and we had a backup, but they took that server too... So now we have nothing... and the FBI won't return our calls..."

What the heck do you do then?

[incrediBILL]

Now imagine if that host that got raided happened to be a bit bigger, someone like GoDaddy perhaps, they're a registrar too, would your domain names continue to be active?

[Demaestro]

It really is a scary thought.

A similar thing happened about a year ago when "The Pirate Bay" servers were seized. A few sites who's only relation to TPB were that they shared the same host got taken down as well.

I feel a little safer because I co-lo everything, so the servers with my stuff do not have anyone one else's stuff on them, but if a raid was broad enough then it is possible they could cart every machine at my host away.

I think the scarier part is that if the machine with your data becomes evidence in an on-going investigation it could never come back.... made worse if the back-up server was taken as well... even if you have off-site backups those too could be part of the scope of the warrant, but even if you did get your off-site backup it could be a day or two old, maybe more.... the potential to permanently loose data is high.

With all the child #*$! raids going on now as well, all it would take is one "legit" hosting company that was involved in this to ruin a lot of people's businesses.

I wonder if it is prudent to start asking host companies what protection they can offer to prevent this scenario.

[edited by: Demaestro at 9:59 pm (utc) on April 8, 2009]

[tangor]

Sad thing, the only way to avoid this kind of thing is to do your own hosting on privately owned equipment over an individually allocated tube... and of course not to do anything that might warrant such seizure.

What mom and pop can afford THAT?

[incrediBILL]

Sad thing, the only way to avoid this kind of thing is to do your own hosting on privately owned equipment over an individually allocated tube... and of course not to do anything that might warrant such seizure.

Even then, if your server gets hacked you could be running services you aren't aware of and still find your server subject to seizure.

It's the same situation people get in that run wifi at home, if someone manages to get into your wifi they could do all sorts of things that could get you into trouble and again, your gear seized.

It's all about security these days, the more the better.

Plus I keep a copy of my site(s) in an encrypted zip file on a memory stick on my keychain so worse case I should have at least one copy left after the smoke clears ;)