This Week in Online Evidence – July 29th 2011
Online Evidence in Litigation
Michelle Sherman of Sheppard Mullin in Los Angeles outlines the legal and practical issues in unmasking anonymous online authors: “Anonymous Bloggers And The First Amendment: When And How Your Company Can Identify Its John Doe Defendants”
Wendy Akbar of Quarles & Brady in Phoenix continues her series on the ethical issues for attorneys attempting to obtain online evidence: “Dr. Seuss, Cheese and Social Media, Part II: Ethical Pitfalls, Pretexting and Duties of Candor”
Social Media Evidence
An article from William Mitchelle College of Law in Saint Paul discusses the importance of online evidence in combating insurance fraud: “Social media and insurance fraud—Professor Gregory Duhl and attorney Jaclyn Millner explain”
Social Networking & Juror Misconduct
Mark Hughes in the Telegraph reports comments from the UK attorney general regarding online jury integrity issues: “Facebook could threaten jury trials in UK, attorney general warns” Read More
This Week in Online Evidence – July 22nd 2011
Online Evidence in Litigation
M.E. Kabay and Gordon Merrill at Network World discuss potential difficulties posed by cloud computing in e-discovery: “Can you comply with court orders for data from the cloud?”
Social Media Evidence
Gibson Dunn’s summary of e-discovery developments in 2011 highlights the use of social media content as evidence: “2011 Mid-Year E-Discovery Update” Read More
This Week in Online evidence – July 15th 2011
From the Cernam Blog
This week we published our first podcast which features three of our team discussing Google+ as a source of digital evidence. You can listen to the podcast on our blog (“Podcast: Introduction to Google+ as a source of online evidence”) or download it via Soundcloud.
Online Evidence in Litigation
Alan Aucoin of Blakes in Toronto outlines how dispute resolution has been affected by social media: “Use of Social Media in Dispute Proceedings”
Scott Etish of Gibbons in Philadelphia discusses the identification of anonymous Internet users: “Caution to Anonymous Internet Posters - Your Cover Might Be Blown” Read More
Podcast: Introduction to Google+ as a source of online evidence
For our first attempt at a podcast we thought Google+ (Google’s new social network) would be a timely and interesting topic. Since the launch of Google+ just two weeks ago it has generated enormous public interest and several million users. Based on the level of interest and the features of Google+ we believe it will become an important source of online evidence, particularly in terms of e-discovery. We will therefore be tracking Google+ closely over the coming weeks and months and have recorded a short 30-minute podcast to supplement our introduction to Google+ from last week.
This Week in Online Evidence – July 8th 2011
Highlight - Procter & Gamble sign up 18,000 employees for Box.net
Our highlight for this week is the news that Box (formerly Box.net, the online collaboration service) have signed Procter & Gamble as a client. Per Robin Wauters at Techcrunch (Box Scores A Big Enterprise Deal), Box will be providing content sharing and collaboration services for 18,000 P&G employees around the world. The scale of this deal reinforces the maturity of online productivity services and the increasing enterprise adoption of what would once have been seen as consumer services. Congratulations to Box on a fantastic win and a significant milestone for online collaboration services. Read More
Google+, the latest social network and newest source of evidence
After a very long wait, Google last week launched their new social networking service, “Google+”. Coming on the heels of several disappointing Google product launches, including the spectacular failure of Google Wave, you would be forgiven for not having high hopes for Google+. However, having used the service for several days we believe Google+ might well make an impact and that, if successful, it will become an important new source of online evidence.
As we have highlighted in our recent posts on Apple iCloud and Facebook’s new Messages system, it is essential to track and understand emerging technologies so that they become an opportunity rather than an issue in identifying and collecting digital evidence. In this post we will therefore introduce Google+ and look at some of the features which could prove interesting in terms of online evidence and investigations.
This Week in Online Evidence – July 1st 2011
Highlight: Google launches Google+, a new social networking site
Our highlight this week is the introduction of Google+, the new social network from Google. The social networking tool is currently in beta, or as Google is terming it “a field testing phase”, but there are already a large number of active users and the service is generating significant interest online. Although this is not Google’s first attempt to enter the social networking market the high demand for invites to the beta is a promising start and suggests that Google may recover from recent lacklustre products such as Google Buzz and Google Wave.
Google already have a loyal user base including those who use Google search, Gmail, Docs, Picasa, Maps etc. Although it will be difficult for Google to compete with established networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn there are some novel features in Google+ which will attract users. Here at Cernam we will be tracking Google+ closely since it has the potential to become a very important source of online evidence, potentially mirroring the importance of Facebook data in litigation and corporate investigations.
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.
