Thursday, September 28, 2006

It's called a 'printout', allegedly.

From the newspaper the other day:

"Authorities said they have lost the computer that belonged to one-time JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr and allegedly held child pornography images he's charged with possessing.

The missing computer, however, is not expected to jeopardize the case against Karr because authorities copied the entire hard drive onto paper, including the five illicit images..."


Copied it onto paper? When I was young, we used to call that 'printing it out'.

And what the heck kind of a backup strategy is that? Couldn't they copy the hard drive onto, oh, I don't know, another hard drive? Flash RAM? Tape backup? CD-ROMs? DVD-ROMs? A network drive? An off-site data silo?

No wonder the US Justice system is so useless. Granted, this was some Sheriff's Department and not exactly the FBI, but really, now. Makes me happy I live in a country where we have the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who only occasionally open people's mail.

5 comments:

f:lux said...

Yes OK, with you on the printout thing but, well, how in hell did they lose the computer!!?

WrathofDawn said...

They entrusted it to people who say things like "they printed the entire hard drive onto paper"...

Rik said...

the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who only occasionally open people's mail.

At least you get mail. One of our postmen has just been convicted for 2 years for hiding mail.

Anonymous said...

Heh. Well, the rozzers are not recruited for their incisive and thoughtful ways.

hang on . . .


Anyway, I'd like to abuse your hospitality and point you and your friends at

http://forums.lablit.com/viewforum.php?f=14

where we're trying an experiment in collaborative writing. Trying to write an exciting but scientifically accurate story.

Richard Wintle said...

I consider myself abused, and we thank you. I shall visit, oh, I don't know, soon. When I'm finished doing all the tremendously important stuff alluded to in the next post.