DEA drops charges against fugitive because 2TB of data is too expensive to

[cybertimber2008]

A fugitive doctor charged in the nation's largest prosecution of Internet pharmacies is getting off in part because there's just too much evidence: more than 400,000 documents and two terabytes of electronic data that federal authorities say is expensive to maintain.

Armando Angulo was indicted in 2007 in a multimillion dollar scheme that involved selling prescription drugs to patients who were never examined or even interviewed by a physician. A federal judge in Iowa dismissed the charge last week at the request of prosecutors, who want to throw out the many records collected over their nine-year investigation to free up space.

"Continued storage of these materials is difficult and expensive," wrote Stephanie Rose, the U.S. attorney for northern Iowa. She called the task "an economic and practical hardship" for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The case started in 2003 with a raid of a small Iowa drugstore and eventually secured the conviction of 26 defendants, including 19 doctors. The investigation dismantled two Internet pharmacies that illegally sold 30 million pills to customers. Investigators also recovered $7 million, most of which went to Iowa police agencies that helped with the case.

When a major drug suspect flees the country, federal authorities often leave the charges pending in the event the fugitive tries to sneak back into the U.S. or a country with a friendly extradition process. But in Angulo's case, the volume of evidence posed a bigger burden.

The evidence took up 5 percent of the DEA's worldwide electronic storage. Agents had also kept several hundred boxes of paper containing 440,000 documents, plus dozens of computers, servers and other bulky items.

Two terabytes is enough to store the text of 2 million novels, or roughly 625,000 copies of "War and Peace."

Two-terabyte memory drives are widely available for $100, but the DEA's data server must be relatively small and may need replacement, a costly and risky proposition for an agency that must maintain the integrity of documents, said University of Iowa computer scientist Douglas Jones.

"A responsible organization doesn't upgrade every time new technology is available. That's all they would be doing," Jones said. "But the result is you end up in situations like this where the capacity they have is not quite up to the incredible volume of data involved."

Source: Yahoo

5% of the DEA's worldwide storage equals 40TB of storage. WORLDWIDE. I'm betting someone at Neowin has more than that in their house. But still, tape is a cheap solution to keeping evidence relatively accessible and increase your storage, but come on, you only have 40TB worldwide? Even if you have 40TB usable (due to duplication across datacenters), it wouldn't be hard or expensive to double that.

[BattleDaggit]

I have 42TB in one average size mid tower!!!

[Elliot B.]

I have 42TB in one average size mid tower!!!

That's ridiculous.

You may need to get out a little more :$

[PGHammer]

5% of the DEA's worldwide storage equals 40TB of storage. WORLDWIDE. I'm betting someone at Neowin has more than that in their house. But still, tape is a cheap solution to keeping evidence relatively accessible and increase your storage, but come on, you only have 40TB worldwide? Even if you have 40TB usable (due to duplication across datacenters), it wouldn't be hard or expensive to double that.

You really have absolutely zero idea how badly broken government procurement is, do you?

As badly broken as government purchasing of things like furniture, cell phones, etc., is, the situation is one THOUSAND times worse in IT.

Do a Google search on the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) - that is the *rulebook* on how the US goverment buys.

Follow it up with Google searches on the Government Accountability Office investigations of procurement protests.

Last - but far from least, follow THAT up with a Google search on GAO investigations of contract fraud related to procurement.

And as scandal-ridden as GSA is, they are a bunch of NUNS compared to how badly Congress screws the taxpayer with purchases for themselves and their staffs.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

Obama spent all of the money bailing out GM and Chrysler.

[Anibal P]

Let's put it like this, the cheap Dells the Gov leases have THE smallest HDDs available, you'll be lucky to have anything over 120gb

I used to image computers for the Navy before they switched to HP, those things were so cheap we could buy used ones for ~200 and that was too much for their desktops, and this was back in 08, hell they had to stop the trials for Vista because the PCs and laptops could not run Vista in any way that would be considered a usable state, they could barely run XP with all the required basic software, we would also image laptops for use with guidance systems and they took ~10 mins to boot and you could do very little multitasking, they would bog down after 2-3 programs being opened

[PGHammer]

Obama spent all of the money bailing out GM and Chrysler.

Nope - can't blame the President (any President) for this mess - the mess has continued despite several Presidents (including Carter and both Presidents Bush) attempting procurement reform.

The procurement system remains broken because it has become part of the *patronage* system - influenced by, overseen by, and heavily-interefered-with by Members of Congress (and their staffs).

[BattleDaggit]

That's ridiculous.

You may need to get out a little more :$

Actually it's 45.06TB including parity and the SSD for the OS. Blu-ray images are large!

Maybe I could rent some space to the DEA.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Wow, the DEA really is incompetent. :no:

[neufuse Veteran]

good gawd, that's all? we have almost 10 million documents at work and near 100TB of storage :huh:

[primexx]

the DEA only has 40TB of storage... worldwide? That's what, a day of Facebook?

[Raa]

I highly doubt he was released because of the reason stated.

[(Spork)]

Obama spent all of the money bailing out GM and Chrysler.

what bull

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Why is this a problem? They could use a large variety of offline storage methods to store the data... This would be the same as it has always been when it comes to storing evidence...

[+Warwagon MVC]

I have 42TB in one average size mid tower!!!

Is that in a redundant raid?

[Growled Member]

Nope - can't blame the President (any President) for this mess - the mess has continued despite several Presidents (including Carter and both Presidents Bush) attempting procurement reform.

The procurement system remains broken because it has become part of the *patronage* system - influenced by, overseen by, and heavily-interefered-with by Members of Congress (and their staffs).

Congress probably knows less than Presidents about technology, if that is possible.

[BattleDaggit]

Is that in a redundant raid?

I'm using FlexRAID.

[Kami-]

I have 42TB in one average size mid tower!!!

Holy ****, I thought I was overkill with 28 oO

[trek]

Tell the DEA to buy a new SAN...

[Pam14160]

Hey United States Government haven't you heard about "Cloud Service". . . :woot: :rolleyes:

Maybe we better not tell them about the "Cloud." They would probably end up paying one-hundred times the going rate.

[chrisj1968]

You guys won't believe this. But i posted a topic today, the article was from 2008, the video below it was from this month. The guy in it was a mathematician for the NSA, the best they had. He stumbled on a plan called "Stellar Wind" whereby Bush, Cheney, Hayden and George tenet all circumvented the constitution and implemented a plan to conduct not only international surveillance but US domestic surveillance. If you watch the video, he claims that, the NSA is constructing a Massive.. i mean massive building to house huge computer/computer storage systems (huge storage servers?) to house up to 100 years of communications from around the planet. then say if you knew me and called me, they could daisy chain through your data, and generate a profile through data mining that can be retrieved at any time and construct a lifestyle.. do you prefer hookers? they'll string your phone calls to say hookers and match your bank withdrawals and create a profile on you. this video appears to be a New York times OP-DOCumentary on this program. I love how he answered their question which caused him to spill the beans on the this classified program to all the un-authorized agents that he was confronted by

thread I started about this.

but every nation not just the US and this is unprecedented that my nation would create this bastion of international snooping.

this thread made me think immediately about this. Sorry didn't mean to hijack this thread. just made me think wow.

[killez]

in this day and age all I can say is WHAT?? really the DEA can't upgrade their servers but yet I can upgrade the servers at 24 locations and have no problems or issues at all.

[PGHammer]

in this day and age all I can say is WHAT?? really the DEA can't upgrade their servers but yet I can upgrade the servers at 24 locations and have no problems or issues at all.

That is because the purchasing rulebook (those selfsame Federal Acquisition Regulations I suggested that folks Google search) is a hodgepodge of regulations and laws/Acts of Congress that specifies - in often hyperminute detail - exactly what, and how, the government can make purchases. (In fact, a certain amount of two particular types of items the government buys every year - writing instruments and furniture - must - by law - come from a pair of *captive industries* - their only customer is the United States Government. One brand known far and wide - within the government - is SKILCRAFT. It appears only on pens and pencils, and is operated by the non-profit Lighthouses for the Blind. Uncle Sam is their only customer. The deal goes back longer than I've been living - and I'm 51. Another similar exclusive deal involves - no squeamishness - prison labor. Part of the *rehabilitation/restitution/trade school* phase of Federal inmates is UNICOR Federal Prison Industries. By law, they can only sell to the United States government and state governments authorized to purchase from it. What is UNICOR's biggest product? Office furniture - tables, desks, chairs, etc. Here's the weird part - it's easily as good as - if not better than - the "big boys" of office furniture (Steelcase, etc.). They do furniture repairs (and even repair/rehab things like "security containers" (safes, in other words - from file-drawer types to the big vault-door types that are identical to those found in the average bank branch) - not as far-fetched as it sounds). Yet UNICOR - despite beating out the big names in office furniture - in terms of quality, not just price - is not fully unleashed. (Same applies to the Lighthouses, by the by - I'd stack up SKILCRAFT pens and pencils against the name brands.) They compete with - and beat - the big boys that ALSO sell to the government - yet they are prohibited in going toe to toe on the wider stage *why*? (Heck, I even have a "slogan" for UNICOR - "Jailhouse-tough" furniture that is more than tough enough for YOUR office.) There's similar carve-outs throughout the procurement rulebook. (The states are no better; if anything, they are often worse.)

[mokthraka]

That's ridiculous.

You may need to get out a little more :$

it only costs around $1500 for 40TB+ anymore.

[remixedcat]

they can store it on CD-R/W herp-a-derp. that's cheap.