Electronic Discovery Navigator

Resources for Better E-mail Management

Resources for Better E-mail Management

"ARMA International is pleased to announce a new portion of our web site, dedicated to presenting best practices and resources for managing e-mail and other electronically stored information: www.arma.org/email.

Traditionally, e-mail has been the kryptonite of organizations. How much should they keep? Where and how should it be stored? Can organizations find the relevant electronically stored information (ESI) when presented with a legal discovery request? With the launch of this new site, the answers are available to organizations everywhere.

Now is the time for information management, IT, and legal professionals, along with employees from all areas of an organization, to get on board and work collaboratively to manage ESI correctly. Failure to recognize the critical need to manage electronic data is no longer an option for organizations. Professionals are looking for the resources to lead them in the right direction."

Federal court hits Bush White House over e-mail

Federal court hits Bush White House over e-mail

"A federal court tore into the Bush White House on Thursday over the issue of millions of apparently missing e-mails, saying the administration failed in its obligation to safeguard all electronic messages.

In a four-page opinion, Magistrate Judge John Facciola said the White House is ignoring the court's instructions to search a full range of locations for all electronic messages that may be missing.

The Executive Office of the President, the magistrate said, is limiting its search to offices subject to the requirements of the Federal Records Act, while sidestepping offices subject to the preservation requirements of the Presidential Records Act.

There is a profound societal interest as well as a legal obligation to preserve all records and "the importance of preserving the e-mails cannot be exaggerated," Facciola wrote."

Fixing Time and Date Values in E-Mail

Fixing Time and Date Values in E-Mail

"When e-mails originate around the globe on servers from Basra to the Bronx, they seem to travel back in time. Replies precede by hours the messages they answer. Such is the discontinuity between the languorous rotation of the earth and the near light speed of e-mail transmission. A message sent from Baghdad at dinner arrives in Austin, Texas, before lunch. E-mail client applications dutifully -- some might say stupidly -- report the time of origin. The confusion grows when receiving machines apply different time zone and daylight savings time biases. It gets even more fouled up when a user in Iraq sends mail via a stateside server. In the end, it's tough to figure out who said what when."

Subsecond Search and Retrieval

Subsecond Search and Retrieval

"Messaging Architects, the leader in risk management software and services for enterprise email, and Exalead, a global provider of search software for business and the Web, announced the release of M+Archive 3.5 with a new Discovery module powered by the unified, secure exalead one:search™ platform. Through this integration, Messaging Architects and Exalead will deliver end-to-end ediscovery solutions to enterprise IT and legal departments utilizing the Messaging Architects’ M+Archive Risk Management and Compliance Platform.

By embedding exalead one:search technology into M+Archive, organizations will be able to quickly and easily retrieve archived email through a unified user interface. M+Archive’s integrated real-time indexing and sub-second search engine provides advanced search features that meet even the most stringent legal discovery requirements. Guided navigation and categorization will enable administrators to quickly go through large data repositories, sort search results based on a number of parameters, and easily locate specific content."

Kroll Ontrack Launches E-mail Investigation and Analytics Software

Kroll Ontrack Launches E-mail Investigation and Analytics Software

"Kroll Ontrack®, the industry’s leading provider of data recovery and legal technologies products and services, today announced the Australian launch of its Ontrack® Firstview™ 2.0 e-mail investigation and analytics software.

Ontrack Firstview 2.0 supports legal and IT teams by offering advanced search and in-depth reporting capabilities to fast track the identification of significant e-mail communications in internal investigations and litigation. In addition, proprietary concept search, advanced visualisation and reporting technology, help to minimise e-discovery costs by reducing the volume of information processed."

Every Click You Make, Your Boss Is Watching You

Every Click You Make, Your Boss Is Watching You

"In 2006, the federal court system announced amended rules for federal civil procedures. The amendments established that in workplace-related federal lawsuits, all of a company's electronically stored information (ESI) was subject to discovery, Flynn told TechNewsWorld.

'In other words, if a company gets hit with a workplace lawsuit, all of your e-mail, instant messages, history of Web surfing, blog posts, text messages and any other electronically stored information can be subpoenaed and used as evidence for or against a company in the litigation,' she explained.

'E-mail creates the electronic equivalent of DNA evidence. E-mail is going to either make your case or break your case,' Flynn added."

E-mail still ranks as top threat to U.S. industry

E-mail still ranks as top threat to U.S. industry

"According to aiim.org Enterprise Content Management Association e-mail remains the biggest content security concern for corporate America.

"The industry needs a better understanding of best practices for improving the control of corporate emails" says John Mancini, President of AIIM.

Mancini says that AIIM has come up with a 'best practices' certification program for managing e-mail more safely after documenting best practices for e-mail management amongst its 50,000 members.

Some groups are trying to promote e-mail authentication programs.  Yet it appears that hackers are finding ways around them."

Industry association defines best practices for managing email

Industry association defines best practices for managing email

"Email is arguably the single largest source of information creation for most organizations. Yet for the majority, email is managed poorly - if at all. According to a recent AIIM Market IQ survey on Content Security, email has become the biggest content security concern for businesses. In order to ensure that email is managed for regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, and strategic advantage, businesses and public-sector groups alike must take better control of their email policies, processes, and technologies. Assuming budget is available; the top three primary obstacles to implement solutions are reported to be lack of understanding, complexity of solution, and user resistance.

Email plays a significant role in documenting decisions and conducting the business of an organization. Truly an enterprise-wide, mission-critical application that affects every user in an organization, it is critical that email be managed appropriately, so that stakeholders retain access to the information contained therein."

Who Wins the Fight Over E-Mail Ownership?

Who Wins the Fight Over E-Mail Ownership?

"'You've got mail." Three little words that everyone loves to hear. But in today's society, where more time is spent at work or working remotely than anywhere else, one has to wonder: "Whose mail is it anyway?" From online shopping to e-vites, almost every employee has used his or her corporate e-mail to send personal communications to friends and family -- despite the company's clear policy to the contrary. In the current litigious environment, what happens when an employee sends personal, allegedly confidential communications from work to his or her attorney or spouse? Can the employer lawfully access those e-mails, or do the attorney-client and marital privileges prohibit the employer from doing so? In answering this question, the key inquiry is always whether the employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the e-mails at issue."

Archiving can be good for you

Archiving can be good for you

"Archiving email is the best first step: the technology is mature and, because so much of business today is conducted over email, archiving email will ensure that one has captured almost all data.

What are the requirements of a good email archiving solution? The key is in proof and verification: in the event that one ever needs to produce records in a legal setting, you will need to be able to prove that they are original, have not been tampered with, and were actually sent and received when you say there were."