[TheTigerMaster]

Like many of you, I am very interested to see what is actually on that video. Is there any report of when it will be released?

As Blair said, it's a video of Ford smoking crack. Exactly as Gawker and The Star reported.

 

[guitarchitect]

It couldn't have taken that long. If I remember correctly, the way Windows "deletes" files is by prefixing a special character (I believe an upside down $) onto the file name. This tells the operating system to hide the file from the user and makes the space used by the file available to the operating system to be overwritten. There are a number of free utilities that can very quickly scan the drive for "deleted" files marked by the special character. It would only take a few minutes to recover in the best of circumstances and potentially a few days if the file was corrupted or had missing pieces.

If the owner of the file were smart he would have deleted the file by overwriting the section of the hard drive with random data several times. There are free utilities that do this and it would make recovery nearly impossible.

Wow - everyone's ignoring what came after my first sentence. If you read it again you'll note that I said that it's entirely reasonable to think that it probably took a long time to go through everything with the proper protocols for logging and recording evidence.

Once again - this was a proverbial needle in a damn haystack. Not to mention that the police very likely didn't get the mountain of digital evidence and say "Right - search until you find that video that isn't the focus of Project Traveler and ignore every protocol that requires you to note down what you find while you're searching!"

Imagine going through every hard drive that you own and recording what's there and what is or isn't incriminating - then doing the same thing but with a forensic search where you recover every recover-able deleted file. And check every file to ensure it isn't a renamed other file (IE - checking the headers of each file). Even if you could accomplish all of that in a single day, weren't there hundreds of drives and/or cameras and/or phones? If they were able to find a deleted file in a hundred working days, I would be impressed.

And I'll concede the same thing that I did earlier - I'd agree with you guys if they were handed a hard drive and told "right, the crack video is on here - can you grab it for me?" But that's not really what happened.

 

[ParkdalePetunia]

I want to follow everything that's going on but I have work to deal with! Is there anyone who has created a concise summary of today's happenings?? I can't keep up!

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Wow - everyone's ignoring what came after my first sentence. If you read it again you'll note that I said that it's entirely reasonable to think that it probably took a long time to go through everything with the proper protocols for logging and recording evidence.

Once again - this was a proverbial needle in a damn haystack. Not to mention that the police very likely didn't get the mountain of digital evidence and say "Right - search until you find that video that isn't the focus of Project Traveler and ignore every protocol that requires you to note down what you find while you're searching!"

Imagine going through every hard drive that you own and recording what's there and what is or isn't incriminating - then doing the same thing but with a forensic search where you recover every recover-able deleted file. And check every file to ensure it isn't a renamed other file (IE - checking the headers of each file). Even if you could accomplish all of that in a single day, weren't there hundreds of drives and/or cameras and/or phones? If they were able to find a deleted file in a hundred working days, I would be impressed.

And I'll concede the same thing that I did earlier - I'd agree with you guys if they were handed a hard drive and told "right, the crack video is on here - can you grab it for me?" But that's not really what happened.

Yup, you're right. I wasn't disagreeing with you

 

[J-Funk]

It couldn't have taken that long. If I remember correctly, the way Windows "deletes" files is by prefixing a special character (I believe an upside down $) onto the file name. This tells the operating system to hide the file from the user and makes the space used by the file available to the operating system to be overwritten. There are a number of free utilities that can very quickly scan the drive for "deleted" files marked by the special character. It would only take a few minutes to recover in the best of circumstances and potentially a few days if the file was corrupted or had missing pieces.

How many computers/phones/hard drives were recovered during Project Traveler? What is the process for doing a forensic examination of a computer/phone/hard drive? How long does that examination take? How many other cases did the unit examining the computers/phones/hard drives have that at any one time took priority over looking at these machines?

Without answers to all these (and probably many other) questions we cannot say with any confidence that finding this video should have been a quick and easy process.

 

[JWBF]

Either this will end his career as mayor or codify it, however, I am happy that my hopes have been met. Jail is inconsequential to me, eroding his voting base is what will end this boondoggle.

The discrediting of Robbie's and Dougie's integrity has opened every statement of "truth" to scrutiny at least.

Halloween is my Christmas, I feel like an 8 year old who got everything they asked Santa to bring.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Idiot Doug Holyday was defending Ford in a scrum at Queen's Park. Ford is done. I don't know who in their right mind would defend him.

 

[guitarchitect]

Just a couple of things.
1) I believe when doing forensic recovery every step of the process has to be documented so what the TPS had to do to recover should be revealed in court.
2) We don't know the state of the drives. Whether the drive was formatted, physical damage, file was simply deleted etc.
3) We don't know if the TPS forensic team had a backlog of other cases that they had to complete before taking a look at these ones.

Listen here - I've seen TV shows so I know how this works. They come in some geek's room with a bag full of drives and say "Drop everything you're doing and find that video!" and he mashes his keyboard for a bit and then the file is recovered. It takes like a day maximum. Anything else is just more proof of how incompetent the TPS really is.

 

[Parker]

You conveniently didn't bold "Getting the video was likely a part of that long and diligent process." Did you just stop reading after the first sentence? Can you say with certainty where "finding the supposed crack video" fell on the priority list of the entire operation, which collected hundreds of computers/cameras/phones/etc?

You know, I've done forensic recovery on a computer system (though mostly financial and corporate work, not criminal) and yes it is more than just hitting a button or two, but it's not quite the Sisyphean task you make it out to be. Regardless, considering that the timing of the release of the warrant details was independent of the recovery of the video, I think it's reasonably to question how conveniently it appeared "just yesterday," especially given the leaks that hinted at its discovery somewhat earlier.

 

[PinkLucy]

Idiot Doug Holyday was defending Ford in a scrum at Queen's Park. Ford is done. I don't know who in their right mind would defend him.

What could he possibly say in Ford's defence?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

You know, if Ford has just admitted that he had a problem when the crack video scandal broke, things would be much easier for him. Stubbornness doesn't pay.

 

[W. K. Lis]

They've only had the video for 2 days; probably reviewing to see if charges can be laid etc

The video was deleted or erased from the hard drive the police found during the raid. Took time to recover it (unerase or undelete it).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

What could he possibly say in Ford's defence?

He said that he didnt think Doolittle and Cook were lying. Just that they may not have seen what they thought they saw.

Aka: The video was a clever fake. Doolittle and Cook were mislead by a fake video.

He obviously didn't think too long about his statement. I dont think TPS would be tricked by clever video editing.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

TTM:

I think Blair specifically said that the video is unaltered. Besides, the video is only a tiny aspect of the tapestry at this point - all the strange movements, bags and envelops of "stuff", communication with various involved parties, etc - points to a much bigger picture than just a video.

AoD

 

[salsa]

Just need to get this off my chest: Joe Warmington, Sue Ann Levy, Giorgio Mammoliti, Doug Holiday and most of all Doug Ford....f* all of you for enabling this very sick, addicted man and putting Toronto through misery for your narrow minded agenda.

Don't forget about Nick Kouvalis.