FARK.com: (4518245) City of New Orleans hires IT firm to find Ray Nagin's "accidentally" deleted emails. IT firm: "The files were intentionally deleted." City of New Orleans to IT firm: "You're fired."

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(WWL)		City of New Orleans hires IT firm to find Ray Nagin's "accidentally" deleted emails. IT firm: "The files were intentionally deleted." City of New Orleans to IT firm: "You're fired." (wwl.com)		102
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CanisNoir		2009-07-18 09:03:14 AM

No wonder there were no IT listings in NOLA.

Still, no comments and a green? Odd.

Bob16		2009-07-18 09:12:30 AM

>> Still, no comments and a green? Odd.

I read the story.

How you get from there to here ---> City of New Orleans hires IT firm to find Ray Nagin's "accidentally" deleted emails. IT firm: "The files were intentionally deleted." City of New Orleans to IT firm: "You're fired."

is beyond me.

ChromaticKid		2009-07-18 09:13:00 AM

I did not have textual relations with that email.

BalugaJoe		2009-07-18 09:13:29 AM

Corruption in NO? Hard to believe.

Nemo's Brother		2009-07-18 09:13:30 AM

This is what happens when the Democratic Party has unrestricted control over a city for too long. See California for an example on the state level.

Bob16		2009-07-18 09:23:50 AM

Nemo's Brother: This is what happens when the Democratic Party has unrestricted control over a city for too long. See California for an example on the state level.

Yeah those Dems screw up everything.

We sure have fallen a long way since the salad days of republican rule.

alostpacket		2009-07-18 09:24:06 AM

What's with the end of the article? some FF/adblock glitch?

all I see is like 3 paragraphs and it ends like this:

"In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of "

Then nothing, just cuts off.

Fuggin Bizzy		2009-07-18 09:24:09 AM

As an IT professional, I'm aware you can recover deleted files. What I'm not so certain of, though, is how you can ascertain intent by forensic examination of a disk.

Maybe they found a cron job that deletes e-mails, or some e-mails directing someone to delete e-mails or something along those lines. Naturally, the article doesn't go into detail, but I'm curious.

It does, however, tell us that the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of, so there's that.

Mr. Bane		2009-07-18 09:25:08 AM

The great thing about living in New Orleans is that politicians are outside the zone of culture.

The worst thing about living in New Orleans is that politicians are outside the zone of culture.

alostpacket		2009-07-18 09:26:24 AM

Fuggin Bizzy: As an IT professional, I'm aware you can recover deleted files. What I'm not so certain of, though, is how you can ascertain intent by forensic examination of a disk.

Maybe they found a cron job that deletes e-mails, or some e-mails directing someone to delete e-mails or something along those lines. Naturally, the article doesn't go into detail, but I'm curious.

It does, however, tell us that the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of, so there's that.

Yeah I'm guessing this is some fine reporting there, Lou.

MonkeyVegetables		2009-07-18 09:26:42 AM

Fuggin Bizzy: As an IT professional, I'm aware you can recover deleted files. What I'm not so certain of, though, is how you can ascertain intent by forensic examination of a disk.

Maybe they found a cron job that deletes e-mails, or some e-mails directing someone to delete e-mails or something along those lines. Naturally, the article doesn't go into detail, but I'm curious.

It does, however, tell us that the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of, so there's that.

"In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of"

yeah i would say the farking thing ends like that

Hetfield		2009-07-18 09:28:22 AM

Silence! Because of is no laughing matter.

Mr. Bane		2009-07-18 09:28:24 AM

Nemo's Brother: This is what happens when the Democratic Party has unrestricted control over a city for too long. See California for an example on the state level.

Ah yes, I yearn for the return to the American Party, where is our modern Gerald Stith?

(Sarcasm tags void as of HTML5.)

Pimple		2009-07-18 09:29:07 AM

Fuggin Bizzy: As an IT professional, I'm aware you can recover deleted files. What I'm not so certain of, though, is how you can ascertain intent by forensic examination of a disk.

Maybe they found a cron job that deletes e-mails, or some e-mails directing someone to delete e-mails or something along those lines. Naturally, the article doesn't go into detail, but I'm curious.

It does, however, tell us that the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of, so there's that.

Pretty easy if they are a Microsoft/Exchange network. Did one mailbox off of exchange get deleted / recreated?

Did one pst/ost on a computer get deleted / recreated and nothing else?

Hard for those situations to happen with nothing else going wrong.

Buck-KY		2009-07-18 09:29:45 AM

So, republitards are just now getting upset over deleted emails.

/typical

Crabs_Can_Polevault		2009-07-18 09:31:56 AM

Without more meat in TFA, it's impossible to tell who's in the right. What was the NO tech chief's findings, and how is he so sure the data wasn't deleted intentionally? For that matter, what made LTC so sure that the data was deleted intentionally?

Without that information, it's impossible to know for sure. So let's make shjt up.

It was the Underpants Gnomes.

alostpacket		2009-07-18 09:35:52 AM

Hetfield: Silence! Because of is no laughing matter.

Agreed. Because of is by far

Bob16		2009-07-18 09:38:40 AM

Buck-KY: So, republitards are just now getting upset over deleted emails.

this

Jacobin		2009-07-18 09:40:56 AM

Knows nothing about these things

toxicculture.files.wordpress.com

Grungehamster		2009-07-18 09:40:56 AM

Nemo's Brother: This is what happens when the Democratic Party has unrestricted control over a city for too long. See California for an example on the state level.

Yep, if there is one thing Democrats are famous for, (new window) it's "accidently" removing vast amounts of electronic records that are subject to document retention laws to cover their own ass. (new window)

/All politicians are crooks.
//Local ones are actually worse, somehow.
///I can't wait for the lulz if they are able to recover this stuff and find out what Nagin was up to.

Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach		2009-07-18 09:43:30 AM

Bob16: Nemo's Brother: This is what happens when the Democratic Party has unrestricted control over a city for too long. See California for an example on the state level.

Yeah those Dems screw up everything.

We sure have fallen a long way since the salad days of republican rule.

I think you may have paid to much attention to Democtratic Party and not enough attention to unrestricted control

The Democratic Party when given unrestricted and/or unopposed control of a City or State has proven to lead that State or City to failure faster than states or cities with opposition one way or the other. Republican states tend to fair better economically but are culturally deficient and tend to have more sprawl.

Absolute control by either party leads to failure.

NOLA has always been a hot bed for corruption regardless of party affiliation of the politicians.

ZAZ		2009-07-18 09:47:03 AM

This happened on a smaller scale near me when the school district hired an investigator who came up with the wrong answer.

NOLA has always been a hot bed for corruption regardless of party affiliation of the politicians.

When were there ever Republicans in charge? In most of the old South there were no Republicans worth mentioning until the 1980s.

finaboy		2009-07-18 09:55:13 AM

Haven't these guys ever heard of periodic backups? You know, it's a fairly common practice.

"In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of a shortage of server space."

HUH? And people actually believe that?

I don't usually comment in the Politics threads, but this is just nutty yo.

Lost Thought 00		2009-07-18 09:57:06 AM

Grungehamster: Nemo's Brother: This is what happens when the Democratic Party has unrestricted control over a city for too long. See California for an example on the state level.

Yep, if there is one thing Democrats are famous for, (new window) it's "accidently" removing vast amounts of electronic records that are subject to document retention laws to cover their own ass. (new window)

/All politicians are crooks.
//Local ones are actually worse, somehow.
///I can't wait for the lulz if they are able to recover this stuff and find out what Nagin was up to.

Is it worse to be pure-evil while lording over 1,000 people, or mostly-evil while lording over a 100,000,000 people?

finnished		2009-07-18 09:59:04 AM

alostpacket:
"In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of "

Then nothing, just cuts off.

It's fixed now: because of a shortage of server space.

Cue the farkers who will tell us that it's ridiculous because you can get a 1 TB SATA drive from Newegg for less than $100...

bulok		2009-07-18 10:01:26 AM

finaboy: Haven't these guys ever heard of periodic backups? You know, it's a fairly common practice.

"In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of a shortage of server space."

HUH? And people actually believe that?

I don't usually comment in the Politics threads, but this is just nutty yo.

THIS.

Doesn't matter that his e-mail account was deleted, there should be tape backups. I don't know of any major corporation that doesn't.

orbitalfreak		2009-07-18 10:02:33 AM

I see the "because of" sentence just fine on my screen.

matthewbmilton.googlepages.com

In case image dies, "In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of a shortage of server space."

bravian		2009-07-18 10:02:56 AM

Fuggin Bizzy: As an IT professional, I'm aware you can recover deleted files. What I'm not so certain of, though, is how you can ascertain intent by forensic examination of a disk.

Its pretty trivial to determine if the e-mails were 'accidentally' deleted versus 'intentionally' deleted.

alostpacket		2009-07-18 10:04:18 AM

ZAZ: When were there ever Republicans in charge? In most of the old South there were no Republicans worth mentioning until the 1980s.

Democrats control the south? Is this like bizzaro world?

bravian		2009-07-18 10:07:19 AM

bulok: Doesn't matter that his e-mail account was deleted, there should be tape backups. I don't know of any major corporation that doesn't.

What a breathtakingly naive comment. A city government is not a 'major' corporation in any way. Its not even a 'minor' corporation. And New Orleans is more of a mom and pop shop whose owner has stayed on too long and driving the business into the ground.

Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach		2009-07-18 10:12:40 AM

alostpacket: ZAZ: When were there ever Republicans in charge? In most of the old South there were no Republicans worth mentioning until the 1980s.

Democrats control the south? Is this like bizzaro world?

Till the mid 80's the South was totally Democratic. Than Reagan happened and they switched sides, now we are already seeing them switch back. Like Al Gore did back in the day.

Bob16		2009-07-18 10:17:58 AM

Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach: The Democratic Party when given unrestricted and/or unopposed control of a City or State has proven to lead that State or City to failure faster than states or cities with opposition one way or the other. Republican states tend to fair better economically but are culturally deficient and tend to have more sprawl.

I see you claim it's been proven but you don't supply any proof.

I'm sure thats just a coincidence.

Phil Herup		2009-07-18 10:18:22 AM

finaboy: "In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of a shortage of server space."

HUH? And people actually believe that?

"I believe it you cock! Go dirty Dems"
www.cbc.ca

millia		2009-07-18 10:18:28 AM

finnished: Cue the farkers who will tell us that it's ridiculous because you can get a 1 TB SATA drive from Newegg for less than $100...

No, but you can get enterprise-class drives for triple that. Or if you want ultra-fast, 8 times that. Still absurd.
I can't really see a difference, in general, but I don't have huge RAID farms. IIRC, Google doesn't see a difference either.

I don't know how Exchange stores mail now, but used to if you cc'd somebody, their mail was just a pointer back to a single object. So cc'ing- and I think bcc'ing, even- a whole org took up not much more space than the 1 message. (This was the advantage vs. notes, where I saw a group crash for a day or two because everybody was sending the 'I will survive' alien video.)

Question for those who - thank the Lord, I'm not one - administer Exchange now. If you did clear out one person's email, does it clear out the copies in other's stores? Or does it just break the pointer? In either case, though, the logging should tell you what they did, and if it doesn't, the db's might not have been compacted. There's lots of avenues I can see on this.

AntiNerd		2009-07-18 10:21:22 AM

These days, a gigabyte costs less than a first class postage stamp. How can anyone run out of space for text-only e-mails? Gmail gives me 7G for free.

Regarding intent, I agree it is dicey to make conclusive statements based on evidence only from recovered deleted files. However when coupled with server logs that can tell you things like when an e-mail delete command was entered with high accuracy, and from where, it can get pretty damning.

Does anyone recall that sexual harassment case against Larry Elison, where it was proved that the plaintiff forged e-mails? This sort of reminds me of that.

finaboy		2009-07-18 10:22:55 AM

bravian: bulok: Doesn't matter that his e-mail account was deleted, there should be tape backups. I don't know of any major corporation that doesn't.

What a breathtakingly naive comment. A city government is not a 'major' corporation in any way. Its not even a 'minor' corporation. And New Orleans is more of a mom and pop shop whose owner has stayed on too long and driving the business into the ground.

I wouldn't say so. I deal with mom and pop shops on a daily basis that still use Windows 98 on their PCs and they still have the sense to periodically backup their work. I'm talking about 60-somethings that haven't upgraded their technology in years.

What is incredibly naive is to think that a city government the size of New Orleans would have an IT department (or individual in charge) that would NOT have the sense to back up information periodically, in case of, oh a natural disaster or something like that. I'm sure they have plenty in their budget for a cheap tape backup system or for an off site company to handle it for them. I'm really surprised there are no laws REQUIRING that they do so.

I said the same thing when Cheney "accidentally lost" a bunch of emails a while back. The fact that we let these guys get away with it without as much as a whimper is really beyond me.

luidprand		2009-07-18 10:23:20 AM

bravian: bulok: Doesn't matter that his e-mail account was deleted, there should be tape backups. I don't know of any major corporation that doesn't.

What a breathtakingly naive comment. A city government is not a 'major' corporation in any way. Its not even a 'minor' corporation. And New Orleans is more of a mom and pop shop whose owner has stayed on too long and driving the business into the ground.

Actually, they are. They may be poorly run, but compare the number of employees and budget. In a town with a diversified economy (i.e., not a company town), the local government will be one of the larger employers. After all, they have to handle (or contract out) roads, schools, police, courts, fire, water, parks, zoning, inspection, revenue, and so on.

The difference between a corporation and a government is one of intent and empowerment, not kind. And a city as big as NO does function as a huge corporation, albeit a privately held hyper-corrupt one that would make a robber baron blush.

Tron Lafontaine		2009-07-18 10:24:52 AM

Sounds like a defamation suit may be in order if the IT firm didn't use any "flawed" techniques to come to their conclusion.

Bob16		2009-07-18 10:24:53 AM

Phil Herup: finaboy: "In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of a shortage of server space."

HUH? And people actually believe that?

"I believe it you cock! Go dirty Dems"

Can we get tag lines at fark so that picture can be i every one of Phils posts.

He's spending half his life posting that pic.

/ Dudes gonna end up with carpel-tunnel or a bridge to nowhere
// just kiddin phil you know i wub you

Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach		2009-07-18 10:27:50 AM

Bob16: Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach: The Democratic Party when given unrestricted and/or unopposed control of a City or State has proven to lead that State or City to failure faster than states or cities with opposition one way or the other. Republican states tend to fair better economically but are culturally deficient and tend to have more sprawl.

I see you claim it's been proven but you don't supply any proof.

I'm sure thats just a coincidence.

California, Detroit, and NOLA are all pretty good examples of "proof". Orlando and Florida in general are good examples of the other side.
Single party rule with opposition sucks everytime. It just sucks differently depending on party.

Buck-KY		2009-07-18 10:27:52 AM

Bob16: Phil Herup: finaboy: "In response to an order from a local judge to produce the Mayor's emails, city officials said the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of a shortage of server space."

HUH? And people actually believe that?

"I believe it you cock! Go dirty Dems"

Can we get tag lines at fark so that picture can be i every one of Phils posts.

He's spending half his life posting that pic.

/ Dudes gonna end up with carpel-tunnel or a bridge to nowhere
// just kiddin phil you know i wub you

I know! You can't visit Fark without seeing that stupidity. (and that image he constantly posts)

Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach		2009-07-18 10:28:39 AM

Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach: Bob16: Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach: The Democratic Party when given unrestricted and/or unopposed control of a City or State has proven to lead that State or City to failure faster than states or cities with opposition one way or the other. Republican states tend to fair better economically but are culturally deficient and tend to have more sprawl.

I see you claim it's been proven but you don't supply any proof.

I'm sure thats just a coincidence.

California, Detroit, and NOLA are all pretty good examples of "proof". Orlando and Florida in general are good examples of the other side.
Single party rule with NO opposition sucks everytime. It just sucks differently depending on party.

sorry, left that out

3_Butt_Cheeks		2009-07-18 10:32:15 AM

What...The hero of Katrina is an asshole?

I don't believe it.

Dufus		2009-07-18 10:34:08 AM

As someone who lives near NOLA I can give a little background.

The emails were requested by a freedom of information process by a local TV station.

The mayor's office "discovered" that they were missing from the server.

After some news stories critical of the handling of the emails and them being deleted in violation of state law the mayor's office "finds" a handful of emails... about 3% of them.

A judge ordered an investigation and the mayor's office hires the IT firm to look into the matter.

The IT firm found that only Nagin's emails were missing and the process needed to delete them from the server required "high level" access. (Someone had to have the passwords and access a secretary wouldn't have.)

It appears the files were more than deleted... either over-written or the drive replaced and copies of everything but the mayor's emails written to the new drive.

After the IT firms releases a statement to that effect the mayor calls them a bunch of fools and says they don't know their job rather than trying to figure out who actually could have deleted the files.

Nagin's last job was with Cox Communications, a local cable provider and probably has contacts who would know how to make files go away permanently.

Salt Lick Steady		2009-07-18 10:37:52 AM

Phil Herup

Ah, what would the Fark politics tab be without you? It's like you're the farking blooper reel of intellect.

Bob16		2009-07-18 10:38:50 AM

Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach: California, Detroit, and NOLA are all pretty good examples of "proof". Orlando and Florida in general are good examples of the other side.
Single party rule with opposition sucks everytime. It just sucks differently depending on party.

Yeah thats some proof.

The red states can't even take care of themselves without coming to the blue states for a handout.

Give me a break.

Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed

http://www.sodahead.com/blog/48274/red-states-feed-at-federal-trough-blue-state s -supply-the-feed/

finnished		2009-07-18 10:50:08 AM

millia: finnished:
No, but you can get enterprise-class drives for triple that. Or if you want ultra-fast, 8 times that. Still absurd.
I can't really see a difference, in general, but I don't have huge RAID farms. IIRC, Google doesn't see a difference either.

Oh I believe there's something fishy going on in here. But it's not unreasonable to think that a city, or even a corporation would run out of disk space and thus delete some material off of the drives.

And especially for a public entity, it's not as simple as slapping on a new USB drive. It's not necessarily easy for private corporations either.

If you have an array of drives, you may need to replace all of the drives with bigger drives. Possibly SAS drives. You might need to take the entire server down for the operation.

If the server is busy, also the disk usage might be so big that you need a lot of new drives.

Then again, maybe the server is old, and rather than updating, they would rather get a new one. Either way, the cost would be so much that they may have to get bids for it. Or at least approval from somewhere.

Approval might be difficult if money is tight. Especially, if there's down time involved, and maybe overtime.

None of these of course explains the lack of backups, but my point was that you can't just expect to be able to order a new drive, slap it in, and be back to reading Fark in 5 minutes.

Cyber_Junk		2009-07-18 10:50:57 AM

I don't really give a damn what party affiliation the people who deleted the emails hails from. Start tossing people in jail for the coverup and next time someone says "I want these messages to disappear" they'll get told to go fark themselves.

/enough with the partisan dickery

Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach		2009-07-18 10:52:01 AM

Bob16: Contents of a Space Wasp's stomach: California, Detroit, and NOLA are all pretty good examples of "proof". Orlando and Florida in general are good examples of the other side.
Single party rule with opposition sucks everytime. It just sucks differently depending on party.

Yeah thats some proof.

The red states can't even take care of themselves without coming to the blue states for a handout.

Give me a break.

Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed

http://www.sodahead.com/blog/48274/red-states-feed-at-federal-trough-blue-state s -supply-the-feed/

I was not referring to Federal taxes or Federal funding. Only State and City management. Republicans tend to try and build revenue internally at the expense of social programs while Democrats tend to try and build social programs with little regard to actual revenue. Both sides are equally corrupt. Without opposition either situation is unsustainable. To the comment that started this, NOLA and California are good examples of of what unrestricted Democratic control will lead to.

You can go ahead and get all partisan about it though if you need to.

HotLonelyTeenageGirl		2009-07-18 10:52:38 AM

Fuggin Bizzy: As an IT professional, I'm aware you can recover deleted files. What I'm not so certain of, though, is how you can ascertain intent by forensic examination of a disk.

Maybe they found a cron job that deletes e-mails, or some e-mails directing someone to delete e-mails or something along those lines. Naturally, the article doesn't go into detail, but I'm curious.

It does, however, tell us that the Mayor's emails had been deleted because of, so there's that.

As an IT professional, you should start looking at Exchange and learning a bit about enterprise mail.

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