Play stupid games, win stupid prices.
That being said, wtf does "relinquishing digital files" even mean? They do know they still have the "originals" and there is no way to prove how many copies he made, right?
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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I mean the fact that they dont have any access controls on their servers should tell you how technically competent those cops are.
How is a fucking URL all you need to access confidential evidence on a police server. Lets bruteforce some URLs i guess?
There was a piece a while ago of a guy that went to expired domains in Belgium, happened to buy an old domain from the police, and all of a sudden, started to have emails from the police with a mail server. Crazy how no one checked the domain.
Edit: found the URL here. And there was other institutions hit as well, not just police
Yeah i saw that back then, it happened multiple time with different organizations iirc.
Ask Adrian Lamo. He "hacked" a few sites just by clicking links
Or Aaron Swartz...
In germany its also catastrophic. I remember three stories off the top of my head where security researchers were raided or sued after properly reporting massive security issues in company software.
That is not a good idea. Demanding ransom from the police never works out. Also, this gives quite a bad vibe to the dutch police as well (or this precinct in particular), since someone cannot verify where to send the files first.
Idiot vs Imbeciles.
Police create conditions leading to arrest
ACAB all the way. but in this case, all he had to do is say "Okie Dokie", it's impossible to prove he didn't make copies or backups, or wether he deleted them or not.
Asking for randsom money from police is pretty stupid way to admit non compliance.
that being said, the police should get in trouble for leaking confidential information.
That's a little unfair. If I leave my door open while I'm gone and someone comes in and makes copies of my personal documents I guess that's somewhat my fault, but they did something they knew they shouldn't have. The guy is basically extorting the police and asking for taxpayer money to delete information he was informed he should not have. It seems like he was notified and given time to comply but chose to demand money. I don't know the exact content of the files, but there's a lot of potential harm that can come from certain documents being public. I'm not pro police, but the guy seems to be clearly in the wrong here.
Only because the conditions the police created gave him the opportunity to be in the wrong.
The wrong he did was the extortion. If you feel like people being extorted should not be able to charge people attempting to extort them because they created the conditions for extortion then I think we fundamentally disagree on how law and order should function. Doing something bad/illegal is wrong. Extorting someone for doing something bad/illegal is also wrong. I don't think you should be able to blame someone for making it easy to extort them as a defense for extortion.
I think the point webp@mander.xyz is trying to make is that, if I were to send you digital information and then demanded from you to delete it, one would have potentially a harder time convincing people, that it's not within your rights to demand remuneration.
Especially with how US-centric and -representative the international media landscape has become.
Even though in most(?) European countries I imagine (didn't actually check) I could sue you for damages, maybe reduced due to my causing the issue, should you publish the information after I asked you delete it.
But with the power imbalance at play here the police can just roll in and arrest the guy. Allowing them to be terminally stupid in the best case, or malevolent in the worst. They could just as well claim they sent someone secret information, they refused to comply with the request for deletion, so they were arrested.
Depending on how little oversight there actually is, that either is the end of the story or, when asked for proof of this series of events, the "proof" was "accidentally deleted" during the investigation, how clumsy.
This is an translated excerpt from the article:
The man decided to download the files. Police told the man to stop this and delete the files. The man indicated that he would only stop and renounce it if he 'would get something in return'. Therefore, the police have decided to arrest the man and confiscate his data carriers to secure the files again and prevent distribution.
If you are sent a download link, while you know you should get an upload link, it is clearly told not to download and choose to download the files anyway, then you may be guilty of computer breach. The recipient can reasonably assume that the download link and the files shared with it are not intended for him.
The police have no indication that the files are further distributed. The protocol surrounding a data breach is followed. Police are conducting further investigations.
It does not seem like a power imbalance allows them to just roll up and arrest him. It seems like they have a legal ability to ask him to remove the files and since he did not they have a legal right to charge him/confiscate the files. I generally don't want to assume public sentiment, but I personally think it's understandable that some government documents (those pertaining to open investigations) are subject to protections that other documents might not be. For what it's worth, if someone sent me their digital information they wouldn't have to ask me to delete it because I would not have saved it in the first place and I certainly would not have asked for payment to delete it if I somehow accidentally downloaded it.
If you feel like people being extorted should not be able to charge people attempting to extort them because they created the conditions for extortion then I think we fundamentally disagree on how law and order should function.
We probably do disagree, because there are conditions that create every crime and punishing the actors does not prevent the crime in the first place. You can see how there is still much crime in places that have supposed "law and order." Go ahead and downvote.
So what's your solution? Let criminals do whatever they want without consequences?
Womp womp