Server company: Deleted Clinton emails may be recoverable

The Hill ^ | September 12, 2015 | Bradford Richardson

[jazusamo]

Platte River Networks, the company that managed Hillary Clinton’s private email server, says it has no evidence of the server being wiped, meaning tens of thousands of deleted emails could be recovered, according to the Washington Post .

“Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped,” company spokesman Andy Boian said. “All the information we have is that the server wasn’t wiped.”

The former secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate said she deleted her personal correspondence amounting to 31,000 emails before turning over the server to FBI investigators.

Deleted data can still be restored from a server unless it has been “wiped” – a process that involves overwriting underlying data with gibberish.

A Clinton campaign spokesperson declined to comment to the Post.

It is unclear whether anyone has the authority to restore the emails, even if they could be restored.

Clinton and her staffers have deflected questions as to whether the server had been wiped, on several occasions saying they don’t know what “wiped” means.

The FBI is investigating whether Clinton compromised classified information over the private server during her tenure as secretary of State.

[tennmountainman]

What happens if the FBI determines the server has been wiped?

If this company did not do it, who did?

Of course, this company could be lying. Or they could be telling the truth.

How would one ever determine who wiped the server, if it has been wiped?

I’m guessing wiping a server does not leave a trail.

[jazusamo]

Agreed...I’d wager that at the very least Russia and China are in possession of most if not all of her emails, of course even if they are we’ll never know.

[FreedomStar3028]

You can tell if a partition has been formatted. But wiped means they delete it, write over it, delete it, write over it, delete it, write over it, etc. Like using a pencil scribbling, erasing, then doing it all over a bunch of times. That way you can’t recover the previously wiped data.

[tennmountainman]

Ok. Thanks for education.

Does wiping a server leave a trail, such as an Internet address
of where the server was wiped?

If wiped, how would one know who and where it was wiped?

Does wiping leave any trackable trail?

[DaveA37]

“Deleted data can still be restored from a server unless it has been “wiped” – a process that involves overwriting underlying data with gibberish.”...

Nothing like telling the “enemy” how to escape. I cannot fathom how they let this happen.

[palmer]

Wiping is often done from the bios or on another server with the disk from the first server plugged in as a secondary drive. The reason is that an operating system cannot “wipe itself”. No trail in that case. But there is another possibility, that the emails and other files were on their own separate partition. If just that partition was wiped, then the user that did that would be logged in the operating system, more or less. The logs would show a successful login, then another log would show some actions or side effects (e.g. unmount the drive that is to be wiped).

[Old Yeller]

I want her shot for treason before Hussein can pardon her.

[deport]

Let the bidding wars begin.............

[tennmountainman]

Thanks for helping me understand how wiping works.
Makes sense that one cannot wipe from same disc as system.

[tacticalogic]

Agreed...I’d wager that at the very least Russia and China are in possession of most if not all of her emails, of course even if they are we’ll never know.

True, we don't know for sure, but under the circumstances I think we have to assume they do have it, so we need to know exactly what "it" is if at all possible.

[DesertRhino]

Shouldn’t the NSA have them? And isn’t this a national security investigation?

[ballplayer]

They must be Hillary supporters with answers like that,we have no evidence,we have no knowledge,what a bunch of crap

[Graybeard58]

Doesn't matter. The communists protection umbrella will make sure that Hillary is completely safe. The problem is most Americans are totally unaware of the power of the communists Democrats with their dictator King Obama.

Look at reply #4, by HarleyLady, for a possible answer for that. I like the way she thinks.

(Bill and Hillary Clinton are the penicillin-resistant syphilis of our political system.)

[Colorado Doug]

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Ayatollah would never turn them over though. It would prove they were receiving classified information and intel.

I'll bet that there is a lot of very interesting reading on Morsi's old computers in Egypt. Wonder what el-Sisi is doing with them. Better yet, I wonder what Bibi is doing with the copies.

[HarleyLady27]

Thank you!!!

[timestax]

Here is where those Demoncraps get their power from...the so called "news media press". The progressive Dems. are the REAL haters.

[usconservative]

Clinton and her staffers have deflected questions as to whether the server had been wiped, on several occasions saying they don’t know what “wiped” means.

Ah, the old "it all depends on what the word "wiped" means."

[usconservative]

Their server logs have a record of every email she ever sent and who she sent it to.

There are many factors that go into whether or not a server OS or mail server application has the capability to be configured to retain log information specific to when, and two who emails were sent to.

Then, it depends on whether or not the system administrator of the server installed and configured the OS and Mail Application Server Software to log that type of information, and then to what degree to log that information.

Further, the System Administrator would've had to configure the OS and Mail Application Server Software to create and retain the information that's logged, and how long to keep that information on disk.

Then there's the question of backups, how often they occurred, and if they were configured to backup log file data, etc..

None of this is completely "cut and dry" that Hitlery's email server was configured to keep and retain log files or emails in the first place.

Anyone with knowledge of Sendmail, Microsoft Exchange, or any of the freely available Open Source email server software packages and the Linux or Windows OS would know how to configure an email server so as to specifically NOT retain any system logs, email logs, or email data itself once it's sent, received and read.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist.

Disclaimer: this specific issue happens to touch upon one of my "expert" subject matter expertise areas and I'm well versed not only in OS' and email systems but encryption, secure data erasure, data recovery, etc..

[jazusamo]

Ughh, that is really disgusting to think about being it’s Hillary.

[zeugma]

This entire discussion is worthless. No one is even asking the correct questions. When this company too posession of the server they took a backup of it unless they are completely incompetent.

They should be dragged before congeress to admit that incompetence publicly. We should also be asking about what programs they were using for theur email server. How was it configured? What security mechanisms were in place, if any? Where are the backups?

Give me an hour with these bozos in the hot seat under the glaring lights of public scrutiny, and I would get some answers.