I'm sure they were just doing their part to prevent iTunes and Amazon from crashing under heavy load.

Sure they can. North Korea does a pretty good job of it.

You just have to block ALL cross-border communications except by a very few trusted, authorized individuals. You still have the weak point of one of those individuals deliberately or accidentally leaking unwanted information, but in practical terms, you CAN keep unwanted information from reaching your citizens.

The price you pay - one that North Korea is very willing to pay - is that practically ALL outside information is kept from crossing the border, even a lot of information that would benefit you, the government, if it did cross.

This technique works on a local level as well:

Cults isolate their non-elite members. Domestic abusers isolate their victims.

This "information control" technique is even used in a healthy way:

Families isolate children from information the kids are not mentally prepared to handle and/or funnel the information through parents and other trusted entities.

Imagine if you are a business leader or local politician and someone with the same name as you becomes infamous in a big way.

Any local politicians named Ken Lay? How about Scott Peterson?

If I'm China and want to spy on a major American company, I might have more success if I tricked his kids into visiting a compromised web site using their home computer.

If I do this to enough employees and the company isn't super-anal about security, one of them will infect a flash drive off of his home computer and eventually take that flash drive to work. I win.

Have your execs "forget" to wipe their "personal" camera card or "personal" camera's built-in memory or some personal item that is reasonably overlooked before they go in. Make sure the card contains carefully faked information.

Then when the guy gets back, hook the camera up to a fake network that has fake information on it. Keep updating the info as if it were a real network.

Then see how your adversary reacts.

As lulz it's expensive, but as counter-espionage it may be cheap.

"If we can't parse it, it gets blocked."

In the old days, Cuban international phone calls were monitored. At least one person started talking a language other than English or Spanish and the operator broke in and told them to speak English or Spanish or get cut off.

Source: Something I read in a reputable newspaper or magazine back in the 1970s or 1980s.

Not true.

In my jurisdiction, an ordinary citizen doesn't have any obligations to the seller or to the owner of any content found, but he may have an obligation to call the police if he does view the contents and he finds certain things like credible evidence that someone is planning to hurt or kill someone else, child pornography, and a few other things.

An ordinary citizen is also just plain stupid or ignorant if he doesn't EITHER verify there is nothing that is inherently illegal to posses such as child porn and/or sterilize the drive upon receipt. Imagine if the police suspected incorrectly that you were committing financial crimes and they get a warrant for your computer. The day before, you buy this refurbished drive, install it, and do a quick-format. The cops don't find any evidence of financial crimes but they do charge you with possessing child porn and attempting to destroy evidence. Even if you win the case, you still have to fight the battle.

In my jurisdiction, some corporations and people who have certain job descriptions *may* have an even higher duty.

In other jurisdictions, the duties of the recipient may vary from "no legal obligation for jack s*it" to a very heavy obligation once they know there is data on the drive. The original poster stated outright that he knew there was data on the drive.

You might expect that if you are buying "used" but "refurbished" has a higher standard. It's supposed to mean that it's been to a factory or factory-authorized facility and certain quality checks and other pre-resale steps have been taken, including sanitizing the drive.

It's one reason I'm willing pay more for a "refurbished" device than a "used" one.