Federal case dropped because evidence took up too much server space

[Ought Six]

Charges dropped against fugitive doctor, because evidence is using too much space on federal servers

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...59.html?_esi=1

The federal government has more than 400,000 pages of evidence against fugitive Miami doctor Armando Angulo, taking up some two terabytes of digital space. On the surface, it sounds like a pretty solid case. But at the urging of prosecutors, charges were dropped against the doctor because the evidence is simply taking up too much space on government servers.

"Continued storage of these materials is difficult and expensive," wrote Stephanie Rose, the U.S. attorney for northern Iowa, describing the ongoing evidence storage as "an economic and political hardship" for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

As the Associated Press notes, the collection of evidence against Angulo, who is charged with illegally selling prescription medicines online, is enough to print the classic novel "War and Peace" 625,000 times.

The evidence against Angulo alone reportedly was taking up 5 percent of the DEA's entire worldwide global storage network. Part of that limited storage capacity stems from the fact that the DEA has not recently upgraded its storage capacity. An external hard drive with a terabyte of storage can be easily purchased online at outlets like Best Buy for around $100.

Read the rest of the article at the linked page.

You could not make this sh1t up.

[TheKiwi]

Pointing to Best Buy external USB HDD prices is really taking the piss. Server storage is significantly more expensive because it needs to be much more reliable than some $100 USB junk disk that people just throw away when it fails.
Try $100,000's of thousands for SAN storage, easily expanding to $millions or $10's of millions depending upon requirements for redundancy, speed of access and so forth.

400,000 pages on 2 TB is about 5MB a page, a reasonable amount for a quality scan of documents.

I am therefore going to draw the conclusion that your blogger is a muppet when it comes to IT.

[Ought Six]

Pointing to Best Buy external USB HDD prices is really taking the piss. Server storage is significantly more expensive because it needs to be much more reliable than some $100 USB junk disk that people just throw away when it fails.
Try $100,000's of thousands for SAN storage, easily expanding to $millions or $10's of millions depending upon requirements for redundancy, speed of access and so forth.

400,000 pages on 2 TB is about 5MB a page, a reasonable amount for a quality scan of documents.

I am therefore going to draw the conclusion that your blogger is a muppet when it comes to IT.

That does not change the fundamental point about the state of the DEA's IT resources.

[Laworkerbee]

I'd love to see the data retrieval process when a clerk has to dig through hundreds of non backed up external hard drives for a case. Talk about a recipe for disaster.

I hope this blogger has a day job.

[TheKiwi]

That does not change the fundamental point about the state of the DEA's IT resources.

Yes it does. It says that the DEA needs to spend (probably) tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars on getting more storage, not $100. Especially if this 2TB of evidence is taking 5% of their available storage. A lot harder to achieve and a lot harder to do on the cuff. Under the circumstances, perhaps some prioritisation is called for.

[Laworkerbee]

The evidence against Angulo alone reportedly was taking up 5 percent of the DEA's entire worldwide global storage network.

This whole article smells like bullshit from the get go. Am I seriously supposed to believe that 2TB represents 5% of the DEA's entire storage capacity for the organization? Someone either dropped the ball and gave a lame excuse which filtered down, or something darker is in the works.

This is why blogs are not to be trusted, ever.

[TheKiwi]

Yeah, that'd indicate that they've only got 40TB of storage (well for evidence anyway).

[Ought Six]

The author is a Yahoo! News reporter that has also worked for a couple other major news outlets, not just some untrained blogger.

[Laworkerbee]

The author is a Yahoo! News reporter that has also worked for a couple other major news outlets, not just some untrained blogger.

Maybe so but he doesn't know tech for shit. The recommendation or comparison to buying an external hard drive is just mindbogglingly dumb.

Sorry to pee on the parade.

[seraosha]

put all that **** in .pdf form, and voila..and dont give me any flack, you morons know what I'm talking about in regards to secure access and signature ref on docs upon retrieval...****ing pennies, and these ashats in their it dept convinced the prosecuters to drop the case, unfackingbelievable...its criminal negligence.

[Ought Six]

Maybe so but he doesn't know tech for shit. The recommendation or comparison to buying an external hard drive is just mindbogglingly dumb.

Obviously, but that is what we have come to expect from reporters. Look at how well they do accurately describing military hardware or firearms. Why would IT be any different?
----------

Sorry to pee on the parade.

You have not. You pointed out some stupid statements. That in no way detracts from the basic facts of the story, unless you have some information that shows what he claimed is false. It all makes perfect sense to me. There is story after story out there in the tech media about how outdated government systems from every department are. The DEA suffering the same sort of deficiencies is hardly surprising. The NSA is probably one of the few departments that has up to date technology.

[TheKiwi]

put all that **** in .pdf form, and voila..and dont give me any flack, you morons know what I'm talking about in regards to secure access and signature ref on docs upon retrieval...****ing pennies, and these ashats in their it dept convinced the prosecuters to drop the case, unfackingbelievable...its criminal negligence.

Yeah I might have worked on a TS system or two myself in the past. And 5MB a page isn't that unreasonable when you need high quality images for PDF files. 2TB for 400,000 pages is pretty reasonable.

[thesarge]

Pointing to Best Buy external USB HDD prices is really taking the piss. Server storage is significantly more expensive because it needs to be much more reliable than some $100 USB junk disk that people just throw away when it fails.
Try $100,000's of thousands for SAN storage, easily expanding to $millions or $10's of millions depending upon requirements for redundancy, speed of access and so forth.

400,000 pages on 2 TB is about 5MB a page, a reasonable amount for a quality scan of documents.

I am therefore going to draw the conclusion that your blogger is a muppet when it comes to IT.

I must be in the wrong business or running mine badly since I store a lot more than that on 2TB drives. Just wondering what's in a document that you need a 5mb scan for it to be readable.

[Ought Six]

I must be in the wrong business or running mine badly since I'm store a lot more than that on 2TB drives. Just wondering what's in a document that you need a 5mb scan for it to be readable.

Encryption? Also, evidence frequently includes a lot of hi-res images from digital cameras, as well as video.

[TheKiwi]

Dare I say that requirements for presentation as evidence in a criminal case are going to be high. You certainly won't get away with a 72DPI B&W scan in my courts. I doubt US courts have lower standards. High res evidential photographs, video survielance footage, etc etc etc. All adds up in a hurry.