Haven't asked, I'll try in the morning, but the person who contacted me was pretty vague about the whole thing.
Convert old DB
- Thread starter pdanes
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Okay, I finally got Full Convert to install and run, but it does not seem to have any provision for reading a .DBS file. Most options lead to a page where it wants to connect to a server, and the few that don't haven't been able to get anywhere.
Two choices (dBase, FoxPro and SQLLite) let me get as far as selecting an output format, but then got stuck when I specified an new, empty Access database as the target, with the message "Could not connect to 'Access' database 'Database1.accdb' / Error: Unknown database format C:\...\Database1.accdb"
tvanstiphout
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OpenText Gupta SQLBase
OpenText Gupta SQLBase est une base de données Web SMB fiable et performante, compatible avec les applications, qui se caractérise par une maintenance automatisée et un faible encombrement
www.opentext.com
Cool, thanks. Got it installed, not quite sure what to do with it now. It seems to be running as a service on my machine, but I don't know how to communicate with it. Tried SSMS, but no luck. I'm too tired to think straight, so I'll continue tomorrow.Looks like you can get a free trial of that database engine. Install, and try to mount your file as a database.OpenText Gupta SQLBase
OpenText Gupta SQLBase est une base de données Web SMB fiable et performante, compatible avec les applications, qui se caractérise par une maintenance automatisée et un faible encombrement
So I found out, but I figured it was worth a try. If it can communicate with one database engine, maybe it can do others as well. Turns out no, or at least not this engine.
I did find out a little bit more - it a database of vehicle accident descriptions from a police department. Has tables of people, vehicles and similar stuff. Don't know if it's only internal police wrecks or general population data. The cops refuse to provide any info about the person who used to work with it, which I suppose is understandable. But I asked if they would forward MY information to HIM, and ask him if would be willing to contact me on the matter. No answer yet.
The Gupta site does mentions some documentation, but like many such obnoxious sites, you have to create an account with them and use that every time you want to look at something on the site. And like all such sites, I use a fake name and disposable email address for the sign-up process, to keep from getting on endless mailing lists. All it does is waste my time filling in stupid boxes on their site with false information, and piss me of, making me like the company less than I would if they just had their documentation freely available.
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Suddenly, something you described about this database trips a red flag for me. Are you sure that your old database that someone gave you was theirs to give?
In the USA, we have a variety of laws about databases because the relevant laws fall into states' rights issues. In Louisiana, breaking into someone else's database is a low-grade felony.
I'm NOT accusing anyone of anything because it sounded pretty innocent at first. However, getting into someone else's database - particularly if it contains personally identifiable information - could be considered a criminal act. And if this is a police criminal records database, the content almost certainly will have PII to consider. Therefore, before following through on breaking into the DB, verify the legality of what you are doing.
In the USA, we have a variety of laws about databases because the relevant laws fall into states' rights issues. In Louisiana, breaking into someone else's database is a low-grade felony.
I'm NOT accusing anyone of anything because it sounded pretty innocent at first. However, getting into someone else's database - particularly if it contains personally identifiable information - could be considered a criminal act. And if this is a police criminal records database, the content almost certainly will have PII to consider. Therefore, before following through on breaking into the DB, verify the legality of what you are doing.
Jason Lee Hayes
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Yes; after reading through the posts i suddenly question the legality!
The author claims to be in touch with the police department over it, and has promised to send my questions to their IT department and get back to me with their answers. It's not encrypted or anything like that, it's just in some old and so far unidentified format. I'm not breaking into anything, I'm simply trying to identify and open a file that someone sent me and asked me to open. I doubt they came by it illegally, but if so, it's their problem and I'm not going to worry about it.
tvanstiphout
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At the very least I would take down that link.
Isaac
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I once worked with a guy who contracted with the local police department and legally possessed all kinds of lists about people who had received various types of citations. It was quite fascinating to look through. This could be similar and not necessarily illegal just because.
Plus, any breaking-in type of crime surely requires a mental state as 1 of the elements, and you're just doing what someone asked you to do with no prior knowledge and not even a stick-your-head-in-the-sand type of reckless shouldda known type of knowledge.
Plus, any breaking-in type of crime surely requires a mental state as 1 of the elements, and you're just doing what someone asked you to do with no prior knowledge and not even a stick-your-head-in-the-sand type of reckless shouldda known type of knowledge.
Isaac
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That's probably a good idea regardless of the rest of it
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True, most crimes should include mens rea as part of the prosecution. However, Louisiana's laws do include a "negligence" variant as well, which does not require specific knowledge beforehand. Can't tell you what the other 49 states do, but to my understanding, by now they ALL have some kind of charges.
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Only if you actually directly downloaded the file to the forum. Please don't do that. The one screenshot didn't appear to contain anything specific enough to reveal a person's PII and therefore is probably OK. It was more like a file's header block, which is probably pretty generic.
I didn't upload it to the forum. I only put a link to a transfer site, and the link is set to expire tomorrow anyway.
I'm not in the US and the database is not from a US source, so no state or national laws apply to me or this database.
I'm kind of sorry I mentioned the word 'police', though. Apparently touched a nerve.
GPGeorge
George Hepworth
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Given the direction this discussion went, I'm going to preface this with a caveat: I assume this is a legitimate effort to gain access to the data.
There is an open source tool called DBeaver, which is sort of a universal database management tool. Think SSMS for dozens of databases. It doesn't support Gupta that I can see, but there are two possible options for Sybase available. One might work for you if this is a Sybase type database file.
There is an open source tool called DBeaver, which is sort of a universal database management tool. Think SSMS for dozens of databases. It doesn't support Gupta that I can see, but there are two possible options for Sybase available. One might work for you if this is a Sybase type database file.
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I looked at the hex dump of what is probably the 1st block of the file and it is innocuous. It has pointers to various structures but that is all. No PII appears in anything I see there.
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Well, either it was all encrypted OR someone erased the records OR you have discovered proof that the civil servants keeping that database were not doing their jobs correctly. Perhaps the latter, with said civil servants hoping to be promoted for doing such a good job of fooling everyone into thinking that they were doing such a good job.
Thank you, just tried it. Installed and runs great, but none of the options read this properly. A few do open it, but it's just a mess, same as when I simply open it with a HEX editor.Given the direction this discussion went, I'm going to preface this with a caveat: I assume this is a legitimate effort to gain access to the data.
There is an open source tool called DBeaver, which is sort of a universal database management tool. Think SSMS for dozens of databases. It doesn't support Gupta that I can see, but there are two possible options for Sybase available. One might work for you if this is a Sybase type database file.
View attachment 122105
Yes, I believe this is legitimate, or I wouldn't be doing it. I could be wrong, of course - that's always a possibility. But I've seen many scams over the years, and nothing about this has shown me any indications that this is one.
Yes, those certainly could be as you say. Again, though - I need to get at the data in its proper form, understanding what goes with what. Simply extracting some number or text data can give a clue about contents, but is not useful for anything definite.
I'm surprised nobody recognizes the internal format, and I wish ALL database file had something like that in their header - name of the DB engine as a bare minimum. This is frustrating, and of course, it's entirely possible that somebody made their own data storage file and did not use any commercial engine. I did a few that way, back in the bad old days. I don't envy anyone trying to decode what I did, if they run across a similar legacy situation from my early work.
xavier.batlle
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The file has been scanned on this website: https://mark0.net/onlinetrid.html
and this is the result:
and this is the result:
