Police Hack

[baddad]

I was just talking to a friend whose wife's laptop computer was crab by the police in a investigation just because it was there. He had to wait 5 months to get it back and when he did it wasn't working correctly. I said if it was password protected they would hack it to get into it. He said no they have a computer that can just link to it and down load everything off of it. I personally know of no such device, but hey I don't know everything. Has anybody heard of this before?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_forensics

 

[Wamphryi]

It takes no time at all to remove a drive from a PC or laptop and plug it into another PC as a secondary drive. That is one of the reasons why a Windows log on password is not enough to protect data.

 

[nikorr]

The first thing to do, is to copy byte by byte full content of the HDD.

 

[Spoony]

if that laptop is now not working i would be asking for compo for the fact they broke it and also you want your data destroyed they took a copy of since if you hav nothing to hide and your not part of the investigation there was no reason for them to take that data in the first place. so in short make a complaint to the CPS give them the details tell them the score and you aint happy and all should get sorted.

"Cough" ex police "Cough"

you have rights and thats the way to go but i told you nothing and you saw nothing or heard nothing from me

 

[Novuake]

It takes no time at all to remove a drive from a PC or laptop and plug it into another PC as a secondary drive. That is one of the reasons why a Windows log on password is not enough to protect data.

All data in My Docs are encrypted if you have a windows password even removed from the original computer.

 

[Wamphryi]

All data in My Docs are encrypted if you have a windows password even removed from the original computer.

If your Docs are password protected by Office then they are easily cracked at a password level especially in earlier versions of Office. The only real way to protect data at all levels is a liberal application of Truecrypt imho.

 

[Novuake]

If your Docs are password protected by Office then they are easily cracked at a password level especially in earlier versions of Office. The only real way to protect data at all levels is a liberal application of Truecrypt imho.

True enough but atleast your DATA pictures included are not just click-and-view.

 

[Combat Wombat]

I was just talking to a friend whose wife's laptop computer was crab by the police in a investigation just because it was there. He had to wait 5 months to get it back and when he did it wasn't working correctly. I said if it was password protected they would hack it to get into it. He said no they have a computer that can just link to it and down load everything off of it. I personally know of no such device, but hey I don't know everything. Has anybody heard of this before?

If you don't have an obligation to hold the computers configuration as is, you should be allowed to reformat it... (Windows fresh install) I would contact the Police Department and vitrify if you can do that first. Once they give you the go ahead... Look to this link for a full windows reload:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/ss/windows-7-clean-install-part-1.htm