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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the freedom-of-the-press dept.

The BBC reports:

A BBC team has been attacked in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan.

We had gone to investigate reports of Russian servicemen being killed near the border with Ukraine.

As we left a cafe and approached our car, we were confronted and attacked by at least three aggressive individuals.

Using physical violence the men grabbed our camera, smashed it on the road, and then escaped with it in a getaway car. During the scuffle the BBC cameraman was knocked to the ground and beaten.

The team is now safe and back in Moscow.

Following the attack, we spent more than four hours being questioned in a local police station.

We discovered later that while we were there, back in the car some of our recording equipment had been tampered with.

The hard drive of the main computer as well as several memory cards with video material had been wiped clean.

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  • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:50PM (#95001)

    This seems like purely political news to me. I think I'd prefer to see more science, tech, engineering and math focused submissions being promoted instead.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by lhsi on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:59PM

      by lhsi (711) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:59PM (#95008) Journal

      I take it you have submitted lots of science, tech, engineering and math focused submissions? (I do generally agree that political stories shouldn't really be on this site)

      If you want more of a tech angle, then how about this as a discussion point (based off the last line):

      What would be the best way for a foreign journalist to secure any digital data they record against deletion from the police force of the country they are in? Local backups are likely a bad idea as this story reported several memory cards being wiped. Is there a good way to transmit a large amount of data (say high quality video data) over a network connection? Particularly an "on the move" one like the vehicle the reporters were in (i.e. no permanent connection)?

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:29PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:29PM (#95018)

        MicroSD hidden under fake scar tissue. Not convenient, but safest I can think of this minute.

        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:13PM

          by Gaaark (41) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:13PM (#95042) Journal

          MicroSD hidden under fake scar tissue. Not convenient, but safest I can think of this minute.

          Hide it in a watch and put it where the sun don't shine (pulling a Christopher Walkin)

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
          • (Score: 3, Funny) by M. Baranczak on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:30PM

            by M. Baranczak (1673) on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:30PM (#95116)

            The place where the sun don't shine is about to secede from Britain, so they'd better hurry.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Geotti on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:54PM

        by Geotti (1146) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:54PM (#95032) Journal

        Well, they could have uploaded everything. You can get unmetered LTE (and at least 3G) for 55 Euros there, according to the coverage map [www.yota.ru].

        It might not be enough for uncompressed video, but that's probably only necessary in a few cases, and at least they'd have something.

        There's also satellite uplinks.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:09PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:09PM (#95270)

          The article says they did upload everything.

          I'm far too intimately involved in this to say any more about how it was done, which is a shame, as it's a min orly interesting techno-journalism story.

          "Fortunately we had uploaded the interview to London earlier in the day."

      • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:31PM

        by evilviper (1760) on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:31PM (#95117) Homepage Journal

        I take it you have submitted lots of science, tech, engineering and math focused submissions?

        I have been... Quite a few. But during that time, the editors still move the most political and inflammatory crap to the top of the queue.

        The staff here at SoylentNews has made it pretty clear, at this point, that they don't want this to be sci/tech like /. originally was, and doesn't care what the community wants.

        paulej72 complains that science stories don't get enough comments:

        http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=3912&cid=93940 [soylentnews.org]

        And NCommander says you should go to Pipedot [pipedot.org] if you want sci/tech/math/engineering, because SN instead tries to be HuffingtonPost on slashcode:

        "our end goals are diferent, pipedot intends to be a better slashdot, SoylentNews intends to be a source of journalism,"

        https://pipedot.org/comment/2CA [pipedot.org]

        I've followed his advice and am giving up on SN, and spending my time and effort on pipedot now. Even with the smaller community, it's more interesting, and has a lot more potential.

        --
        Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by lhsi on Friday September 19 2014, @07:53AM

          by lhsi (711) on Friday September 19 2014, @07:53AM (#95392) Journal

          Science stories don't usually get that many comments, but often the comments they get are usually all good. It is harder to comment on science based stories while remaining on topic, whereas stories with a low knowledge barrier can get a lot of comments because more people are going to feel they can offer their opinion on it as they understand a lot more (additionally, science stories generally lay out facts; in a non-science story that is opinion based, anyone can have an opinion on something so feel as they they can comment on it to offer it, but that doesn't mean they are going to add anything useful or meaningful)

          • (Score: 2) by black6host on Friday September 19 2014, @01:16PM

            by black6host (3827) on Friday September 19 2014, @01:16PM (#95468) Journal

            Not to mention that if a science story generates a minimum number of comments (amount unknown) there will usually be crossovers into related, but different content. That opens up avenues for discussion that are themselves interesting and allows people who don't have specific experience with the original story to make meaningful and interesting comments. It's like looking at a tree at the base and then watching it all branch out once the trunk is long enough. I've seen it happen many times on the other site.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by CRCulver on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:10PM

      by CRCulver (4390) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:10PM (#95010) Homepage

      I agree. My enthusiasm for SoylentNews has waned in recent weeks with the prominence of political stories and non-tech stuff like the Ferguson shooting. I am keenly interested in Eastern European politics, but one can already turn to several excellent news websites that focus on that with better detail and more informed comments sections. Please, let's just be a continuation of ./ without the Dice spam and clickbait -- that was, after all, the promise that drew many people to SN.

      And lest one say "Well, if you want to see X kind of news, why don't you submit it yourself?", if there isn't enough in the queue, then the best thing to do is simply wait a bit to post something new, not put ordinary mass-media news on the frontpage just for the sake of posting something, anything.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:27PM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:27PM (#95112) Homepage

        " if there isn't enough in the queue, then the best thing to do is simply wait a bit to post something new, not put ordinary mass-media news on the frontpage just for the sake of posting something, anything."

        Way to miss the point entirely. The point is that you should submit what you like, not wait for somebody else to do it, and I don't see anything in the queue with your name on it.

        Discussion and submissions here are not a magical turnkey solution. You can't just waltz in here from Slashdot and expect the same experience. Unfortunately that means that people are going to have to pitch-in to make this a better place, and pitching requires effort (and nobody likes effort).

        I think there should be more categories (including a politics category) and users should be allowed to select which categories they view like on the other site. I personally like the news and politics stories, it's a good place to discuss them without having to deal with the retards and ban-happy mods in the local news forums or the shitposting numbnuts on 4chan. Being a nerd is, after all, about staying informed.

        • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:56PM

          by evilviper (1760) on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:56PM (#95138) Homepage Journal

          The point is that you should submit what you like, not wait for somebody else to do it, and I don't see anything in the queue with your name on it.

          You've seen plenty with my name on it, and I second his opinion. No matter how many sci/tech submission in the queue, the editors continue to choose to post inflammatory click-bait.

          --
          Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:27PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:27PM (#95161)

            Actually, as someone who regularly reads the queue, I can say that the editors choose practically every story. These last couple of days have had the biggest backlog of stories more than 2 days old that I have ever seen here, and it's only about 8.

            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:28PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:28PM (#95215)

              Since the lull around Labor Day, the queue [soylentnews.org] has been fairly full.

              A submission I made last month about superPACs' commercials finally floated off the top of the queue into /devnul.
              A significant portion of the non-STEM stuff has been going that route (even faster).
              In previous weeks, when non-STEM stuff is showing up on the front page, there was a high probability the queue was running low; these days, it seems more like a **hot topic** or an *adding variety* thing.
              (Some people have indicated that S/N is their -only- source of news.)

              ...and the political stuff does get lots of comments--some of it is even insightful--so, apparently, there is a demand for it.

              The fact that evilviper doesn't like the political stuff seems to correlate strongly with its being opposite to his ideologies/prejudices.
              A significant portion of nerds, however, are anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian.
              ...and as Ralph Nader's Left-Right Alliance shows, there is significant agreement between seemingly disparate camps.

              Finally, life is politics.
              If you chose not to show up and play, you lose by forfeit.
              (Just look at how the free-market/anti-labor folks have gobbled up pretty much all of the traditional media outlets; that feedback loop came from the complacency of the working class.)

              .
              Oh, and about traveling in a combat zone: Step 1. Hire bodyguards.

              ...and I wonder if the thugs are tech illiterates and all the files can be recovered intact with a decent undelete utility. [google.com]

              -- gewg_

              • (Score: 1) by evilviper on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:07PM

                by evilviper (1760) on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:07PM (#95241) Homepage Journal

                The fact that evilviper doesn't like the political stuff seems to correlate strongly with its being opposite to his ideologies/prejudices.

                And how did you determine my political ideologies? Oh, that's right, you didn't. You just think it's an easy accusation to throw around, and try to discredit someone you disagree with, without proof.

                Just wanted to clear that up.

                Finally, life is politics.
                If you chose not to show up and play, you lose by forfeit.

                Posting the latest rumor-mill here, does not have any positive effect on the world. Not wanting politics mixed in with sci/tech does not mean refusing to vote, or being uninformed. Oddly enough, I get my news from more than one source, and nothing posted here would help me being an informed voter, anyhow. It's all just clickbait crap.

                --
                Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:04PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:04PM (#95269)

                  how did you determine my political ideologies?

                  I read your posts. This isn't rocket surgery.

                  Just wanted to clear that up

                  You previous posts already cleared up your position.

                  Posting the latest rumor-mill

                  There's a saying: "Video or it didn't happen".
                  Rejecting on-the-spot video, as you have, reveals your prejudice.

                  You have chosen which reports you will embrace (the Ferguson PD's).
                  Those have been revealed to be lies at every turn.
                  Continuing to accept them, again, simply reveals your prejudice.

                  -- gewg_

      • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:53PM

        by evilviper (1760) on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:53PM (#95135) Homepage Journal

        Please, let's just be a continuation of ./ without the Dice spam and clickbait -- that was, after all, the promise that drew many people to SN.

        Afraid not, the SN staff has made it clear that's not what they want to do.

        paulej72 complains that science stories don't get enough comments:

        http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=3912&cid=93940 [soylentnews.org] [soylentnews.org]

        And NCommander says you should go to Pipedot [pipedot.org] if you want sci/tech/math/engineering, because SN instead tries to be HuffingtonPost on slashcode:

        "our end goals are diferent, pipedot intends to be a better slashdot, SoylentNews intends to be a source of journalism,"

        https://pipedot.org/comment/2CA [pipedot.org]

        I've followed his advice and am giving up on SN, and spending my time and effort on pipedot now. Even with the smaller community, it's more interesting, and has a lot more potential. I was only here today checking my messages.

        --
        Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by marcello_dl on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:17PM

      by marcello_dl (2685) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:17PM (#95014)

      It is not "purely" political. For example, did they try to recover the data after the wipe? Then they overwrote the entire hd which explains the time it took since they might have gone all the way and used multiple passes.

      Was the hd ruined forever? F*cking magnets, they do work.

      And once we get into the reasons for posting stuff, that can be done at all levels: is your objection purely technological? Is my post counter-counter-propaganda? Couldn't ukr and rus have set up instead a DMZ with much autonomy to those regions using them as a comfy cushion for the benefit of all, diplomacy 101?

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Geotti on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:59PM

        by Geotti (1146) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:59PM (#95036) Journal

        Couldn't ukr and rus have set up instead a DMZ with much autonomy to those regions using them as a comfy cushion for the benefit of all, diplomacy 101?

        Ukraine was supposed to be that cushion, then Nuland & Co. came along (and others before her). I don't want to start a flame war, but why the fuck does NATO still exist?

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:20PM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:20PM (#95046)

          Bureaucracy! All that red tape builds momentum.

          Just wait long enough and we'll progress into The Aftermath ;)

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by CRCulver on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:04PM

          by CRCulver (4390) on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:04PM (#95075) Homepage

          Ukraine was supposed to be that cushion

          A cushion in itself isn't ideal, one needs a stable cushion. The problem with Ukraine is that Russian policy for the last 20 years has been to support corrupt autocracy in Ukraine, as long as the country stays loyal to Russian interests, while the West hints that internal reform must also include moving entirely to the West. That in itself undermines the cushion, because popular discontent is going to have one large part of the population pulling towards a potentially less corrupt state modelled on the West, while another large part of the population will pine to join their region back with Russia where Putin has supposedly cracked down on corruption.

          If Ukraine must act like a cushion, it's a real shame that it wasn't allowed to undergo a process of finlandization, where the people could depose corrupt officials and model their internal affairs as they wished, provided they didn't align entirely with either foreign power. Ukraine has such potential, but it has been largely wasted. One does wonder if Putin fears reform in Ukraine because it might lead to calls for the same within Russia itself.

          • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:20PM

            by Geotti (1146) on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:20PM (#95081) Journal

            One does wonder if Putin fears reform in Ukraine because it might lead to calls for the same within Russia itself.

            If you think Putin is the mastermind, you're probably wrong, so what he fears is pretty much irrelevant. Russia is very different from the Ukraine in many regards, I don't see any change coming that will make it more "tame" anytime soon, if at all, as long as it is perceived there that relations are not based on mutual respect and on an equal basis. The lesson was learned with Yeltsin the latest.

            Corruption is a huge problem everywhere, it's a shame there's so little we can do about it short of removing privacy and tracking every (trans)action and automatically litigating the dubious.

            The problem with Ukraine is that Russian policy for the last 20 years has been to support corrupt autocracy in Ukraine

            While the problem with western influence is very similar and just turns another nation into IMF slaves.

            There has to be a win-win solution, but I don't see it.

    • (Score: 2) by buswolley on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:28PM

      by buswolley (848) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:28PM (#95017)

      AC objections don't count for much , weight-wise.
      Besides Soylentnews and /. before it have long run articles concerned with censorship.

      --
      subicular junctures
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:48PM (#95228)

        "buswolley" is just as anonymous as "Anonymous Coward."

        If an Anonymous Coward comment doesn't count for much, than neither does yours. It's really no different.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:32PM (#95022)

      Yes! There are already so many boring purely tech sites.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:40PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:40PM (#95026)

        Newsflash: The value in a site like Soylent News isn't the type of articles that are posted, but the types of comments provided by the community.

        Again: To a large degree, the actual articles are secondary to the insights provided by the readers.

        Mind-blowing, I know.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by velex on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:50PM

      by velex (2068) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:50PM (#95029) Journal

      I disagree. Soylent News is People!

      I do also like seeing the science/tech/etc submissions, especially when they generate lots of comments and back-of-the-envelope calculations instead of falling off the front page with 1 or 2. I won't read TFA on this one, but I will on the science/tech submissions. I don't usually have anything to add unless it's about programming (or gender), but there are a lot of knowledgeable people (I hope!) here I enjoy reading.

      This is one of the few news sources I read because I'm sick of the constant race and gender baiting in mainstream sources, not to mention the 24/7 be afraid!!!1!eleven! sensationalism. The flame wars the political articles generate can be amusing, but I what I really like is reading the comments from soylentils on the other side of the globe who post with an opinion or even facts that differ from the official stor^H^H^H^Hpropaganda.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:23PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:23PM (#95050)

        Yeah, I somewhat rely on SN/SD for my What The Fuck Is Actually Going On source. Usually there's one guy 3/4 of the way down the comment section who can cut through all the bullshit.

        That being said, I think we could afford to back off the political articles a bit lately, and we're starting to suffer from Dramatic Headline Creep.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:58PM

          by wantkitteh (3362) on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:58PM (#95237) Homepage Journal

          There have been a lot of dramatic headlines, but it seems to me that the reason for that is lots of dramatic stuff going on.

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:24PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:24PM (#95051)
      This seems like you don't know how to skip stories you're not interested in. Or shall I go by your example and go into Linux stories and post about how I'm not interested in them?
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:08PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:08PM (#95078)

        Linux stories are on-topic, regardless of what you may think about them. Political stories aren't. Each off-topic political story wastes space that a relevant story could be using instead.

        • (Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:17PM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:17PM (#95079)

          Linux stories are on-topic, regardless of what you may think about them.

          There is no stated topic here, you're thinking of Slashdot.

          --
          🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:35PM

      by LaminatorX (14) <laminatorxNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:35PM (#95088)

      We have, since the beginning, broadly aimed for about 70% science & technology, and 30% "other" material. This is of course dependent upon submissions, but that's the goal. "Other" might be politics, art, humor, "stuff that matters," or whatever seems like it might be worth discussing with our fellow community members. There are plenty of outlets to read about the Ukraine, Ferguson, or whatever, but only one where we have the sort of discussion about them that this community fosters.

      In a group of thousands of people, even those with many common interests, not everyone is going to like every story. We pay attention to feedback regarding content (especially when we discover we've gone way off-track), but ultimately if you see a story that doesn't interest you the simplest thing to do is scroll down to one that does.

      • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:13PM

        by evilviper (1760) on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:13PM (#95151) Homepage Journal

        ultimately if you see a story that doesn't interest you the simplest thing to do is scroll down to one that does.

        The /. admins said the same thing, many times... Yet here we are.

        In fact you can't isolate one set of stories from another like you want to. It has a huge effect on the readership, as I've seen over the years on /. Tech stories, too, get a flood of mindless comments like the political clickbait crap, that decrease the S/N ratio of the discussion.

        Similarly, moderation suffers as idiots outnumber the rest of us, and they vote-up not the most fair-minded and technically accurate comments, but the most talk radio-esque yelling and screaming and "me-too" comments that sound good to them, and support their biases. Even if the facts of the specific situation don't really fit.

        But you can do whatever you want... I'm a SN refugee, pinning my hopes on Pipedot now.

        --
        Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
        • (Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:38PM

          by LaminatorX (14) <laminatorxNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:38PM (#95166)

          Pleasing everyone all the time is simply not possible, and there are stories on here that have one thread going on about how the story doesn't belong and another thread with a great discussion about the subject of the story. How should we gauge that? Were the community members who enjoyed a good discussion ruining the site somehow?

          One thing I think would be beneficial is to implement tagging and filtering on tags as a user preference. Don't want to see a certain subject? Uncheck the box and let those the do enjoy them continue to do so, that sort of thing.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:23PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:23PM (#95247)

          Am I misunderstanding you, or are you suggesting that SN should be posting only stories that interest you?

    • (Score: 1) by turgid on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:06PM

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:06PM (#95148) Journal

      At the moment, Russia and China are up to some very crafty tricks to gain territory and to provoke international response. Together with goings on in the Middle East (Islamofascism) and North Africa (more Islamofascism) the seeds of radical change are being sown. This time next year, the wold could be a very different place and unrecognisable to those of us brought up in comfortable western countries (my own country is voting today on whether to become independent from the UK). And who knows what those nut-cases in North Korea might try?

      This site still has a relatively small community of active commentators, so the quality of the discussion is still high, and the signal-to-noise ratio is better than on the mainstream news sites.

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:39PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:39PM (#95025)

    Why wouldn't the "bad guys" just steal the car, or the expensive equipment?
    Erasing the data is to intimidate locals. For foreign journalists you're supposed to take the loot! and blame $minority.

    In passing, I do not believe there is a required link between the persons who beat them up (it's a tense area, and we can't know if they acted stupid), and the opportunists who erased the drives... Probably, but not necessarily.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:54PM (#95033)

      > Why wouldn't the "bad guys" just steal the car, or the expensive equipment?

      Might be a joe-job, trying to make it look like some other group was behind it.
      But they just might not be very smart either sometimes people don't make the most rational choices.

  • (Score: 2) by E_NOENT on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:46PM

    by E_NOENT (630) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:46PM (#95027) Journal

    The hard drive of the main computer as well as several memory cards with video material had been wiped clean

    Chances are, there is recoverable data on those HDs. Maybe they can get some of it back.

    I wonder what precautions, if any, journalists like that take to hide data (maybe a hidden partition) on their drives?

    --
    I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:03PM (#95038)

      hidden partition) on their drives

      Bad idea. I'd like to introduce you to my friend the electrical magnet.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:31PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:31PM (#95055)

      Somebody did a study that found that overwriting the whole disk with zeros means your data is functionally gone (on modern Winchester drives). Even with a cleanroom the odds are pretty bad.

      It's another question whether the people responsible are competent enough to use dd, though. And it takes a long-ass time to block-fill even a 250GB HD.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_erasure#Number_of_overwrites_needed [wikipedia.org]

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:38PM

        by Blackmoore (57) on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:38PM (#95223) Journal
        if it was SSD the data would probably be unrecoverable.  Since we don't know what equipment was being used - or the condition it was found in - we can't even guess it the data or the device was destroyed.
        • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday September 19 2014, @02:17PM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Friday September 19 2014, @02:17PM (#95492)

          I would think they would have said "destroyed our equipment" instead of "erased our footage" if they had the chance.

          And I'm not really acquainted with what the wear leveling is like these days, but I'd assume it's at least more likely than a Winchester drive to be recoverable.

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 2) by nukkel on Thursday September 18 2014, @08:58PM

      by nukkel (168) on Thursday September 18 2014, @08:58PM (#95196)

      Fat chance. From what I heard, the tech literacy of the average journalist ranks somewhere between 'medical doctor' and 'my folks who just retired'

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:56PM

    by MrGuy (1007) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:56PM (#95070)

    I wonder why there isn't more of a market for video/recording devices that, in addition to recording to a primary storage device, also record (say, a rolling "last 30 minutes of footage") to a hidden second device (e.g. a MicroSD card located in a non-obvious place)? You could also have the soft erase in software default to NOT erase the hidden store. The hidden backup store doesn't have to be big enough to hold everything the "main" store does - just retain enough to have a good probability of having a second record of "that thing they didn't want you to see/demanded you erase" (e.g. the police beating of an unarmed civilian you were taping when they noticed you). The footage they wanted you to erase is very likely the most recent footage.

    If you want to get fancy, have the hidden store physically inside the device, so you wouldn't know it was there without taking a screwdriver to it, and have it have no software interface (if you want to read it, you have to open up the device, take it out, and hook the MicroSD up to a special reader or program).

    Given that it seems like more and more, "official" forces around the world are cracking down on journalists, and one weapon they use is demanding to erase footage of whatever will embarrass them.

    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:08PM

      by Geotti (1146) on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:08PM (#95077) Journal

      Why limit yourself to 30 minutes, when you can have even several ofthese [sandisk.com] installed in the device?
      I'd still go with live-upload whenever possible.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:15PM (#95108)

      That only works until those devices become well-known and then even if your camera isn't one of those they'll start confiscating the cameras just to be sure.

      Plus most people who find themselves recording footage of interest like that hypothetical cop beating never planned to find themselves in such a situation so they are unlikely to even seek out, much less pay a premium for, such equipment.

      • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:46PM

        by EvilJim (2501) on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:46PM (#95283) Journal

        especially if the only place the cops might not look for removable storage is your arsehole.

    • (Score: 1) by TestablePredictions on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:30PM

      by TestablePredictions (3249) on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:30PM (#95251)

      Is that just a form of security by obscurity? The "official" forces will quickly figure out this is generally going on and will generally convert over to catchall methods like thermite. If the bad guys have physical access to your only copy of data, it's game over.

      I think we should focus on better methods for streaming journalist data "offsite".