You're probably making MP3s everyday and don't know it ...
9-october-04 ...Source: EDDix ... Notes:
Denise Howell had an end-of-summer post ("PSA Re Law Firm Voicemail") that warned the unsuspecting and uninitiated about the nexus of VM and VoIP ... the net of which is that the voicemail you thought you left semi-securely in analog format is increasingly an .mp3 file which can be readily stored, forwarded, etc.
Digital voice mail has not gotten a lot of play in and around the electronic discovery world. For one thing, it's not yet pervasive; for another, corporate VM apps and servers may only store 30-60 days of VM before overwriting. Yet again, in spite of corporate DRPs which may mandate timely erasure of VM from the corporate server, what do we do about the digital VM on Denise's desk-top or laptop? Because, all other things being equal, it is unquestionably discoverable.
We're looking for two equal and opposite developments, one near-term and one long-term.
In the short term, we see the continued evolution of technologies to convert, index and search digital audio. Aspen Systems Corporation and iCite (Aspen's commercial legal division) have a service offering called AudioCite(SM), which grew out of work performed by Aspen Systems for the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and other agencies, in reconstructing and analyzing trading audio related to Enron's alleged manipulation of energy markets.
Longer-term, Data Retention Policies (DRPs) don't provide a lot of protection if they cannot be effectively executed and enforced ... which they can never be as long as significant portions of the corporate records data (traditional documents, email, and now voicemail) lay outside the direct control of the company's IT department, i.e. home office desktops, laptops, PDAs, etc.
We see three types of potential solutions:
1) Each (potential) corporate record in electronic format gets encapsulated in some form of smart envelope which self-destructs at the end of some time-certain period, e.g. 30-60-90 days for VM, IM, email.
2) Any device which connects to a corporate server (and is, therefore, capable of easily receiving and storing corporate records) will be automatically scanned on every connection for expired records and/or other non-conforming data (danger Will Robinson danger) which the scanner will record and extinguish from the device.
3) All connections to corporate servers will be through (dumb) terminal services mode, made possible by ubiquitous broadband.
Corporate-issue digital signing would also be required so that anything which was not digitally-signed could be excluded as falling outside of the company's corporate records.
It is our view that, at this point in time, the execution of the foregoing measures is largely a function of corporate will and cost, not technology.
This is a beat we'll be on for a while ... and we welcome your thoughts and comments ... understanding as you no doubt do that, once posted to the web, your comments no longer belong to you, but to the grid ....
DH informs re: nexus of VM and VoIP net of which is that the voicmail you thought you left semi-securely is increasingly a .mp3 file which can be readily stored, forwarded, etc.
We have some thoughts about the implications ....
Comments ... You're probably making MP3s every day ...
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