Senator John Ensign’s guide to electronic evidence: hide the email, destroy the email, delete the mailbox
In our recent paper on Facebook’s new messages system we mentioned in passing issues caused by the use of personal webmail accounts for business or government purposes. We specifically mentioned the example of US Senator John Ensign, which we also touched on in last week’s seminar in Dublin. Having mentioned Senator Ensign several times we realized his case may not be widely known, despite coverage by e-discovery commentators such as Perry Segal and in the press.
John Ensign was a United States senator for Nevada who was elected for the Republican Party in January 2001. In May 2011 he resigned from the Senate as a result of an investigation into ethics violations. The background to his resignation lay in an affair he conducted with Cynthia Hampton, a member of his staff. Disclosure of the affair led to investigations by the FBI and the Senate ethics committee amid allegations that Ensign broke the law in order to cover up his affair and made inappropriate payments to Hampton including a an alleged severance payment of $96,000.
This Week in Online Evidence – June 24th 2011
Highlight: Forget everything you thought you knew about domain names
Our highlight for this week is a change which will have an enormous impact for years to come: the decision by ICANN to introduce a new regime for top-level domain names. ICANN is the top-level governance body for Internet names and numbers, primarily meaning the domain name system which is the foundation of web browsing, email and other Internet services.
In recent years ICANN has approved the creation of additional top-level domains (or “TLD’s”)such as “.aero”, “.museum” and “.asia”, however real-world of these new TLD’s has been limited and for most Internet users the web still revolves around “.com”, with perhaps limited usage of other long-standing TLD’s such as “.org” or “.edu”. This week’s announcement means that arbitrary names can now be used for TLD’s for the first time, irrespective of objective need or overlap with existing TLD’s.
This Week in Online Evidence – June 17th 2011
Highlight: UK joins the club on online juror misconduct
For several months we have tracked developments in online juror misconduct as part of these weekly summaries. In the United States this is a serious problem which has led to numerous mistrials as jurors use social networking sites to discuss deliberations or make inappropriate contact with parties in a case.
This week saw the culmination of the first UK trial for juror misconduct, when Joanne Frail received an eight month sentence. The UK’s Telegraph has a good summary of the case: “Facebook contempt case: juror jailed for eight months” while the story was also widely covered in technology (TheRegister) and legal circles (WSJ law blog). Although the facts of this case mirror many US cases which we have covered previously, it was interesting to note that Frail had both carried out independent research in the form of web searches and, more seriously, engaged in lengthy online discussions with the defendant in a criminal case.
Facebook New Messages & Digital Evidence: Looking on the Bright Side
For the fourth instalment in our series analysing Facebook’s new messaging system we want to look at some of the positive points of “New Messages” as digital evidence. For the background to this post you might like to read our introduction to New Messages; a summary of the main changes in the new system; and our notes on some of the digital evidence downsides.
Although we have mainly discussed negative aspects of Facebook Messages, for example the risks introduced by the Facebook.com webmail system, there are aspects of New Messages which will be very helpful in using Facebook Messages as evidence.
This Week in Online Evidence – June 10th 2011
Highlight: Apple’s “iCloud” Announcement
Looking back at developments in online evidence this week there is a clear lead story: the announcement of iCloud, Apple’s integrated suite of cloud services for iPhone and iPad users. Rather than re-hash the reams of comment and reporting on this subject we will point to our own post looking at iCloud from a digital evidence perspective, where we also look at some of the external comment. It is also worth noting Forrester’s new research on the market for “personal cloud” services, estimated to be worth $12 billion by 2016. We are delighted to see both Apple and Forrester vindicate the importance of what we have called online productivity services, an importance which will drive the growth of online evidence in the near future. Read more
Cernam Seminar: Facebook’s New Messages & Digital Evidence
Special seminar in Dublin on Facebook’s upgraded messages system
Facebook is one of the most popular electronic messaging systems in the world, with close to 700 million users exchanging over 4 billion messages each day. In December of last year Facebook announced an upgrade to Messages and this improved feature is now being made available to users outside of the US.
New Messages fundamentally changes the nature of Facebook Messages and the associated risks. Did you know for example that Facebook users can now exchange Office documents and other attachments via New Messages? Or that switching to New Messages provides a Facebook.com email address which can be used to send and receive emails outside of Facebook? Read more
Breaking the Bad News: Facebook’s New Messages & E-Discovery
This is the third in our series of posts on Facebook’s updated messages system. In our two previous articles we introduced New Messages and discussed the main changes which it introduces. In this post we will look at the emails generated by New Messages and the difficulties which will arise in relation to electronic discovery.
A radically different view of email
Facebook users who are switched to the new Messages system will receive a Facebook.com email address based on their choice of Facebook username, for example a username of MarkZ would give an email address of MarkZ@Facebook.com. New Messages will generate email messages when a user communicates with another Facebook user who is offline and when an email address is entered as the recipient of a Facebook message. Facebook users can also receive external emails via their Facebook.com email address, with emails being delivered to the Facebook messages inbox. Read more
Apple iCloud – Cloud Computing for your Grandparents
The announcement this week of Apple’s “iCloud” service is an enormous step forward for cloud computing. To date “cloud” has been a marketing buzzword, a hassle for IT departments, a concern for legal departments and a major focus for investors. However, for the general public the topic has been of little interest and the majority of computer users have continued to use much the same technology as 5 years ago. With the news that Apple is rolling out an integrated suite of cloud services for iPhone and iPad users this situation has changed, with cloud computing entering the mainstream virtually overnight courtesy of a Steve Jobs’ keynote.
Apple’s iCloud announcement came in the same week as a Forrester research report looking at the market for personal cloud services. Forrester’s research focussed on the type of service which we have referred to as online productivity services: tools for creating and sharing documents; data backup services; task and project management tools etc. Forrester estimate that the worldwide personal cloud market will be worth $12 billion by 2016, while in a blog post they go on to say:
The personal computing experience has become a major pain in the neck, as people add smartphones and tablets to the growing number of PCs they use at work and at home – more than half the US online population, about 135 million people, have the challenge of managing their content across multiple PCs and smartphones.
Forrester believes that a new computing experience is emerging, based on the personal cloud concept, that will redefine the computing experience around a user’s personal and work information, so that it’s seamlessly accessible across all of an individual’s devices.
Although Apple were arguably falling behind Google and even Microsoft due to their lack of cloud services the introduction of iCloud has immediately changed the market. Frank Gillett of Forrester even suggests that Apple now lead Google on personal cloud services (prior to a single customer going live on iCloud!) and estimates that Apple’s innovation around cloud services is “on par with the most notable startups in the personal cloud space, such as Dropbox, Box.net, and Evernote”. Read more
This Week in Online Evidence – June 3rd 2011
Highlight: Why would China target personal Gmail accounts?
Our news highlight for this week is the sophisticated attempt to hack accounts on Google’s Gmail service which has been widely reported as an espionage operation by China. Writing in the Washington Post Cecilia Kang and Ellen Nakashima reported that:
Hackers based in China gained access to hundreds of Gmail accounts, including some belonging to senior U.S. government officials and military personnel. The personal Gmail account of one Cabinet-level official was compromised, an official with knowledge of the breach said.
This Gmail compromise was based on a targeted “phishing” attack which relied on tailored emails to have the victims visit a malicious website which requested Google credentials. This type of attack is common but this instance has generated significant interest based on the individuals targeted and the fact that it appears to have been successful, at least in part. Read more
