Knock, Knock

Here’s an interesting article about how the FBI came a-knockin’ on a company’s door one day.

Some things that I found interesting:

– having the FBI breathing down your neck is incredibly distracting. It’s no wonder companies in countries where arbirary law enforcement is the norm can’t get anything done. Serving your customers takes a complete back seat.
– If the FBI does come along and take your server, have a backup ready in case they never give it back. Prevents downtime!
– Wow, encryption works
– The fact that the FBI gave the server back a few days later, and went to some lengths to reinstall it, suggests that, perhaps, government employees actually want to do the right thing here. The culture of the civil service matters.
– The people who run this shop are clearly bible-thumping free speech fundamentalists, which is fine. The question is whether a lesser (more naiive?) ideologue might have gotten better treatment. Unlikely perhaps.