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The authorities apparently got tired of asking and just went in themselves.

Canada-based Windscribe, a VPN provider, just said that one of its European servers has been allegedly seized by Dutch authorities without a warrant. According to the company’s post on X, law enforcement said that they will return it to the service provider after they “fully analyze it.” It’s unclear why law enforcement impounded just a single rack from Windscribe’s cabinet, but the VPN provider said that it only uses RAM disk servers, meaning anyone who would look through the installed SSDs would only find a stock Ubuntu install on it, so the servers shouldn't hold any trackable data.

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[-] carrylex@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Too sumarize the article:

US clickbait and ad infested news website directly quotes "trust me bro" Twitter post + describes in 2 sentences what a ramdisk is and does zero real "journalism" like maybe contacting mentioned dutch authorities or Windscribe themselfs.

Once again: Ban Tom's Slopware. Post the original source instead.

[-] NepGinger@lemy.nl 6 points 1 week ago

What authorities exactly? How did they get their hands on these servers without being let in? Do they have a response to this all being put on twitter? Even the article doesn't mention reaching out to "Dutch authorities" for comment, in a great journalistic failure to clarify anything.

[-] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

Whatever they find is inadmissible, if there truly wasn't a warrant.

[-] jeansburger@piefed.world 8 points 1 week ago

Doesn't mean they can't use it for parallel construction

[-] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

Does Dutch/EU law have that?

[-] rollin@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

It basically means dodging legal restrictions on investigation by using illegal (or at least inadmissible) means to obtain evidence, and once the police have it, they look for legal ways to get that same information.

So everywhere "has it", the question is whether they use it. I don't know if there's reason to believe that EU police forces use such methods more or less than their US counterparts.

[-] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

I know what it is, but that doesn't mean it's an accepted practice in the EU. I don;t really know much about how their law works, which is why I asked about it.

[-] jeansburger@piefed.world 1 points 1 week ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

It's not a law but a practice that cops do in order to use dubiously acquired evidence to build a case against someone.

[-] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago

Yes but that doesn't answer the question of whether it's an accepted practice in the EU. I'm also not so sure it isn't somehow codified into law, in the US there's precedents supporting it but IDK about other countries.

[-] sudoku@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

this isn't in US

[-] gressen@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Got it, do not use IT services in ~~Denmark~~ Netherlands.

[-] deadmyk@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Dutch is not Denmark. Dutch is Netherlands

[-] sunbeam60@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago

“Oh you’re Danish! You should meet my friend Geert Van den Berg, he’s also from Dutchland!”

If I had a penny for every time, I’d have at least three fiddy.

[-] einkorn@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

Also, turns out Geert is from Germany and not the Netherlands.

[-] P1k1e@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Goddamn it Loch ness Monster.....

[-] regedit@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

Right? I use lemmy to avoid dinosaurs from the Paleozoic era, not to interact with them!

[-] vrek@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

Look, I know I am no longer young and hip but calling me a dinosaur hurts my feelings...

[-] lesinge@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

An important distinction lol

[-] Auster@thebrainbin.org 3 points 1 week ago

There's that legal jargon that comes to mind, fishing expedition

[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 1 points 1 week ago

Police have UPS-like devices which splice into existing mains cables to keep machines alive on the way into the forensics lab. Presumably it’s standard practice to use those.

Of course, the server could be configured to wipe itself if it loses connectivity for more than a few seconds, or its routing changes. The police would need devices that route Ethernet traffic over 5G, though those would presumably be detectable as bandwidth goes down and latency goes up.

[-] glitch1985@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

No clue if data centers in other countries are similar to the ones in the US but the handful I've been in are basically Faraday cages with zero cellphone service inside so it would be quite the feat keeping any kind of internet connection after the ethernet cable is removed.

[-] Zephorah@discuss.online 1 points 1 week ago

To what end? What authority? At this point it could be you or me in a mask with a body cam, for all the credentials authorities are showing these days.

Spoiler: it was a random thief in need of hardware.

[-] P1nkman@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

The thief just want to set up their own gaming server; issue is that it's too expensive to purchase, so it's easier to steal it.

[-] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 week ago

Oh no, without a warrant. How could they. How impolite. No, our security is only intended for jurisdictions with law-abiding police.

[-] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Fun fact, but you can't really do much if the police decide to just take your stuff, because they have guns. And likely more than you do.

[-] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 week ago

Yes. They should perhaps dispose of that server when returned, or thoroughly examine all the firmware and such for changes. A hostile party has touched it.

this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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