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I've seen situations like these before. This is why off-site backups are so very important. I've also been in the same position of providing data from a backup that someone was intentionally trying to destroy to escape responsibility.

This story even hints at a common theme that happens even when people aren't trying to destroy data - that some people will tear down whatever they inherit, then blame their predecessors for the problems that result.

It's always interesting to me how easily corruption occurs. I always assume that accounting double checks things and so on, but I've seen so many business where someone just creates an account and money goes out and ... nobody notices for years.

I've even created automated invoices for some companies and realized that some data was missing for months. And yet they got paid significant amounts. I realized that the invoices could have been for just about anything and they would have gotten paid ...

I think I missed something. They later offered the guy the world to solve problems. He declined and then complains they wouldn’t provide the tools he needed.

Part of “name your price” should include whatever tools - up to and including ownership of processes.

Can you elaborate at all as to why you didn't make the phone call you eluded to that made the other person change their tone? I assume out of respect for the deceased/leaving skeletons in the closet?

Fantastic war story. There's always like these dozen hangers-on who've made their fortune parasitizing successful people.

In the healthcare industry, there have been instances where vital patient data was either lost or improperly handled due to lack of proper systems and oversight. In one case, a hospital that had relied on outdated paper records for years faced a crisis when an employee accidentally deleted critical data. It wasn’t until the hospital implemented an integrated digital system that could track and back up data that they regained trust with patients and stakeholders.

Creepy

I used to work for a not for profit. The level of legal graft was enormous.

We once got audited by a government agency. Said government agency had been extensively burdened with restrictions in its operation by lobbying from the NFP space.

After completing the audit, the gentleman running the government agency had a press release more less saying "I think it would be best if we were allowed to release our findings where they pertained to the expectations citizens have for the not for profit space, and not just where we find outright illegal behaviour. People should be able to understand exactly how much of a charities funding is used for its actual charitable purpose, and how much of its funds are effectively gifts for directors and staff"

Which sort of sums it up. Graft goes on it just finds a legal path.

Great read! Yeah, these days if I get asked for technical advice, I’m always glad to put good effort into suggestions. But as soon as you tell me “well I want to follow some of your advice, but I want to do this other stuff the wrong way”, I usually say “Good luck with all that!” and away I go.

Author's note: Many readers, understandably struck by the severity of the events, have speculated about the involvement of organized crime. I want to clarify that, while the situation was extremely problematic and dishonest, that wasn't the case. The "worst parts" I alluded to referred to other internal dynamics, abuses of trust, and improprieties that I prefer not to detail further for privacy reasons and to avoid weighing down the narrative.

Reading through it I had a feeling it was in Italy. I was bit sad to confirm it.

One of the reasons why having boxes in a data center would be good.

If there was big(?) money flowing through the company regularly, Keeping the server at the office and the backup in the owner's house seems like a shoestring budget.

Which was way more common in the past years, esp in small companies when "IT" was to be cheap cheap, even if there was.

But it seems that the client in this story did not worry about cost. Want a new server? No problem, A second one (windows) no problem?

Was stuffing the box into a data center ever brought up?

Odd observation: Many stories like this involves NetBSD for som reason.

good read.

Italia. Money is not a problem, still they don't hire any consulting company. No organized crime involved. Sure ;-)

PCEngines!

Man, I've been running my Linux firewall/router & AP's off these machines for years. They are rock solid.

How you gonna leave out the good parts like circa<year> so we can gauge the tech available then? Also, what about the tools you used to sync/backup to owner's house? My personal query, why did you move to freebsd? was it a different application/use? This is an awesome story, our modern approach would be to install nextcloud/owncloud with collaboration and rsync/syncthing to an offsite NAS (owner's house). As for your decision, I would have agreed to a directorship and hired a local MSP to do things the way I wanted. This would have allowed you to have your cake and eat it too. A lot of times, in these situations, all you need is trusted eyes and ears from outside the corrupted fold. This principle is used in the military and diplomatic core, there is a staffing structure, and then there is an XO, who is hired and controlled from HQ. This XO answers to HQ, not the local structure.

Probably there was a lot the family did not know about the deceased father.

> Because sometimes, dishonest people do win.

Let me fix this for you… Because always, dishonest people do win.

Good read and it would make a good short film :-)

Why the hell is there a line break after every sentence?

> Because sometimes, dishonest people do win.

Dishonest people almost always win.

Not any individual one - a particular dishonest person might only win 20% of the time - but in aggregate - the winner is almost always a dishonest person.

Even when a game rewards honesty, dishonest people are willing to be honest if that's truly what gives them the greatest chance of winning, so they still win.