Yeah, a friend of mine discussed this after Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games got "busted" by the feds (later found not guilty). He was worried his BBS would be seized because his BBS dealt with how to crack certain games, although he didn't have warez or pr0n, just discussion about cracking software. He had spent YEARS collecting this data, and had almost 350 mb of text files and accounts he was afraid would be ruined.

We thought about taking an older computer, slapping in some spare SCSI hard drives, and trailing a quickly disconnecting SCSI cable from the computer to another computer he kept behind a shelf in his basement.

But later, he got a tape drive, and just kept a few tapes offsite at a trusted friend's house.

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they were after him and his company, and if they found out about the tapes, they might have been able to seize them, too...What I see a lot of is the innocent provider, employer, school, etc., that is caught in one of these situations because of the alleged misdeeds of a user on their network...

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Hell, even if they do ask for my offsite storage, I'm not gonna tell 'em where any of 'em are!

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don't get yourself caught up in an obstruction or false statement charge....

basically, I'd stick to the letter of the subpoena, and fall back on the "I don't know what I'm permitted to say in this situation, let me refer you to my [lawyer, legal department, boss, etc.]"

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"I ain't telling" isn't a false statement. And I'd rather have my data, thank you. If it's one of those situations where I think they'd actually dare be hardass, I'd give 'em a couple of copies (obvious ones, like the dupes at work) to make 'em go away, but keep a couple of others to myself. The repercussions, I'll deal with in court.

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The problem with "I ain't telling" tells them that there are--or likely are--more.

Any variation on that is probably equivalent--if they really want to, they can try to get a judge to compel your cooperation...which you can probably refuse on 5th amendment grounds even if you have nothing to hide...

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"they're not likely to take a system that's still in a box"
Ooooh dang, that's really clehvur ... takes a real pro to know that.

cheers

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remember, i'm not talkin about someone trying to hide evidence of a crime, I'm talking about keeping your network up and running for the 99.9% of your user community who had nothing to do with whatever happened...

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Woa, no, no tongue in cheek or anything! Geesch, never pondered the ambiguity there.

regards

("Bite thumb" ... haven't heard that in a while!)

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;) hey, that crazy bard came up with a good line or two...

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