Convert old DB (1 Viewer)

[pdanes]

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.

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]

At the very least I would take down that link.

 

[Isaac]

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.

 

[Isaac]

At the very least I would take down that link.

That's probably a good idea regardless of the rest of it

 

[The_Doc_Man]

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.

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.

 

[BlueSpruce]

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.

Although the file's timestamp is more than 30 years old, according to the OP it contains personal information. Would AWF be liable if we discover the file was illegaly obtained, helped the OP to open the file , and then something bad happens to people mentioned in that file?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Although the file's timestamp is more than 30 years old, according to the OP it contains personal information. Would AWF be liable if we discover the file was illegaly obtained, helped the OP to open the file , and then something bad happens to people mentioned in that file?

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.

 

[BlueSpruce]

Only if you actually directly downloaded the file to the forum. Please don't do that

I didn't and wouldn't upload that file to the forum, the OP did, and if it were up to me, I would remove it from the OP's post to ensure there's no potential fallout.

 

[pdanes]

I didn't and wouldn't upload that file to the forum, the OP did, and if it were up to me, I would remove it from the OP's post to ensure there's no potential fallout.

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]

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.

DBeaver Community | Free Open-Source Database Management Tool

dbeaver.io

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I didn't and wouldn't upload that file to the forum, the OP did, and if it were up to me, I would remove it from the OP's post to ensure there's no potential fallout.

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.

 

[BlueSpruce]

I scanned the entire file and didn't see any Personal Info

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I scanned the entire file and didn't see any Personal Info

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.

 

[pdanes]

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.

DBeaver Community | Free Open-Source Database Management Tool

dbeaver.io

View attachment 122105

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.

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.

 

[BlueSpruce]

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.

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.

I scanned all legible text with my hex editor and did not see any personal information in that file. However, there is some unique data that might be report numbers and vehicle license plate numbers?

 

[pdanes]

I scanned all legible text with my hex editor and did not see any personal information in that file. However, there is some unique data that might be report numbers and vehicle license plate numbers?

View attachment 122118

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.

 

[BlueSpruce]

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.

In my hex editor, the header data has a similar signature to the header of an Informix C-ISAM data file. However, I tried mounting it on Informix and it couldn't open it. Many db server tables require an associated .idx index file and must be defined in the SYSTABLES, SYSCOLUMNS, and other system catalog tables to properly work. Your best chance is to try using SQLBase, Sybase, or DBeaver to open that file.

 

[xavier.batlle]

The file has been scanned on this website: https://mark0.net/onlinetrid.html
and this is the result: