On the Mark

I know my co-worker Lawrence Lee is going to crank on me for this one but here goes:

I’m a forever DOS and Windows guy since the beginning. Since before the Internet had GUI’s. Dos 3, Dos 5, I even ran Windows 3.1 on a 286 with 4 megs of RAM. Impossible, they said. I did it. Windows 95 was painful, 98 was a tad better. XP has been a mixed blessing and Vista…well, I’m not sure I’m going there.

Seriously. I have a tablet laptop which I won in a drawing a few years ago and its main duty has been to get my wife on the Internet and let her access email. She’s searching and shopping and stuff like that. But lately the laptop had grown to be sluggish and slow. Her brother has a Vista machine and boy those graphics are nice. But it’s too big a hog to go on this old tablet of mine.

I’m frustrated that Microsoft has made my hardware obsolescent with their newest operating system. So I was faced with a decision.

And what did I do?

Ubuntu.

God bless you.

I didn’t sneeze, I said “Ubuntu!”

Huh? Come again?

That’s right. I went completely off the reservation and wiped that laptop clean, right down to the bios.

I installed Ubuntu 7.10, the Linux based operating system that is FREE and stable.

That’s right. A Linux operating system.

Whoa, the Windows crowd gasps. Now THAT was uncalled for.

I have to get on the road this morning but I’m quite sure Ubuntu will work its way into this blog again very soon.

Anyone else here Ubuntu?

Yesterday morning was just beautiful.

I awoke to the warm breezes of Orlando, Florida and a dull ache in my back from holding a 29-pound vibrating child waiting to meet the King. No, not Elvis. He’s dead. (ask me about my sister Laura’s Elvis story sometime).

I’m talking about the real King…Mickey Mouse.

This morning, not so beautiful.

I awoke to the frigid cold and a snowstorm pounding New York, and now have an aching back from shoveling and pushing my snow blower up and down the sidewalks of my house and my neighbors’. It hasn’t let up yet and I’ve two rounds of snow-blowing, two rounds of sprinkling rock salt, or whatever it is, AND one snowman under my belt.

Yikes, this storm may be a big one.

Anyway, apparently my back isn’t the only thing that cold has a bad effect on. All this time we’ve fancied ourselves as super-smart in using encryption to stop unwelcome eyes from seeing our important data. Without encryption, things could be very scary for so many e-scenarios, it’s mind-boggling.

In his New York Times article today, John Markoff writes about The Center for Information and Technology Policy, Princeton University’s recent work in demonstrating how cold temperatures affect data and encryption efforts. This is really great stuff.

Edward W. Felten, one of nine individuals who performed the study, discusses it on his Freedom to Tinker blog. Both sites are great reading for folks like us (geek wannabees) and a must read for the real thing.

Ed blogs, “The root of the problem lies in an unexpected property of today’s DRAM memories. DRAMs are the main memory chips used to store data while the system is running. Virtually everybody, including experts, will tell you that DRAM contents are lost when you turn off the power. But this isn’t so. Our research shows that data in DRAM actually fades out gradually over a period of seconds to minutes, enabling an attacker to read the full contents of memory by cutting power and then rebooting into a malicious operating system.”

I’m not going to get into the e-discovery preservation aspects of this; it seems way beyond “reasonable,” to say the least. But it’s interesting that the so-called experts are wrong, and have been wrong for some time. It may interest you, too.

So, how do we really secure the data now that we know of this issue? Do programmers write to wipe DRAM before a device powers down?

Here’s a scenario: User accesses encrypted data on a server from remote. A large part of that data will live for a short period of time in the DRAM of the laptop or desktop computer used from remote session. I see potential security issues popping up on this one.

Ed blogs further, “. . . if you cool the DRAM chips, for example by spraying inverted cans of “canned air” dusting spray on them, the chips will retain their contents for much longer. At these temperatures (around -50 °C) you can remove the chips from the computer and let them sit on the table for ten minutes or more, without appreciable loss of data. Cool the chips in liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) and they hold their state for hours at least, without any power. Just put the chips back into a machine and you can read out their contents.”

I’m going to close this entry now and reach out to one of our experts over at Seagate Recovery Services for his insight. We’ll pick this up on Monday.

Have a great weekend everybody  — and stay warm.

On the Mark

In addition to writing this irreverent e-discovery blog, believe it or not, I actually have a real day job.

While On the Mark readers know I usually attempt to remain vendor-agnostic and commercially neutral within the confines of my blog, guest articles and speaking engagements, I’m going to don an evangelist hat briefly to discuss the new MetaLINCS 4.0 software release today.

MetaLINCS 4.0 supports an important market trend with large industry implications as we soldier on into the new post-FRCP world.

Let’s face it, today there are simply more products and technologies available for EDD than ever before. And that’s an understatement. Some of those offerings are worthwhile and some are not. Some are first generation, struggling to remain relevant, and others are attempting to retrofit and enhance offerings to stay in the game.  

In an environment once dominated by a service-driven model, MetaLINCS and other forward thinkers recognize the obvious: This environment is giving way to packaged software across the whole EDD value chain.

Corporations are seeing EDD as a compliance issue that must be addressed and its out-of-control costs contained. And for good reason. As e-content continues to proliferate, technological advances are the only way to tame this beast. The question, of course, is how to consume it. And before anyone starts to crank up the flame throwers, stop and take a breath.

“With the recent changes to the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, there has been a massive surge in market activity around E-Discovery. E-Discovery vendors are working to understand where the market is heading and to provide solutions based on their customers’ needs,” says Debra Logan, research vice president, Gartner.  “These solutions present enterprises with the potential to save huge amounts of money on the collection, processing, analysis and organization of the massive amounts of electronic data produced – and subpoenaed – each day.” 

OK. So I’m not alone. Let me underscore that in my humble opinion, this is not a software-versus-services question. Because it’s not. It’s a question of finding the right combination of the two.

MetaLINCS 4.0 is the first product to begin delivering an EDD software platform with the power and flexibility to control your own EDD destiny on a case by case basis – software or services.

So Mark, since you are showing no sign of stopping this sermon, what’s new about this product you like so much?

As an old Litigation Support guy, I may look at tools differently based on painful memories caused by older tools’  inadequacies. Being in the trenches will do that to you. The first really cool thing we’ve added to this version (the first major release since I came on board):

Scripting Engine and Interface –MetaLINCS 4.0 features a new scripting engine with a graphical user interface that allows common case management, data analysis and other tasks to be customized and automated. We’ve incorporated some very helpful scripts, and you now have the total power of being able to write your own. Just think of review assignments that can be refined based on search results and automatically created in bulk in a matter of seconds. This gets your team productively reviewing relevant data in moments.

You obviously feel compelled to enlighten me further. So what other features are you proselytizing about?

Why I’m glad I asked myself that border-line snotty, moist with sarcasm, question.

Graphical Query Builder– New search operators and a graphical query builder make all the search capabilities in MetaLINCS more powerful and easier to use. Features such as double-sided wildcards and proximity searches incorporating wildcards extend the flexibility of the MetaLINCS search engine. All of these search enhancements can easily be incorporated into scripts so they can be used in setting up review. The MetaLINCS Graphical Query Builder simplifies the creation of sophisticated searches and helps users take advantage of MetaLINCS’ rich set of search fields specifically designed for e-discovery. It’s the most powerful and easiest to use search tool I’ve ever encountered.

MetaLINCS Instant Clustering™– The new context search feature in MetaLINCS 4.0 allows reviewers to create custom clusters of documents around any document they uncover during early case assessment or review. This Instant Clustering™ capability allows large groups of similar documents to be assembled on the fly and reviewed together.

I’m going to close here before I’m forced to throw myself off the soap box. There’s more. Quite a bit more. But I’ll leave that to our marketing guys and website to tell you.

To get the full press release, click here: MetaLINCS 4.0 Press Release.

In short, as an organization we’ve been building momentum with each new client and each new release of our E-Discovery solution. This 4.0 release is major, and with what I know about the “Road Map” it’s also a good precursor of exciting things to come.

By Mark V. Reichenbach - October 30, 2007

LiST, The UK’s Litigation Support Technology Group came to my attention through The Orange Rag, Charles Christian’s fine blog in the UK.

In looking at its website, it’s clear that LiST is a thought leadership think tank in the UK with significant organizations and firms as participants.

It’s also clear they have contemplated issues that were pain points for them in the UK, just as the EDRM has for those here in the States.

LiST has produced many documents, three specifically On the Mark readers should find timely:

Data Exchange Protocol part 2 of 2

Document Exchange Protocol part 1 of 2

The third is the release notes for these two pieces of work product:

LiST Groups Release Notes for Exchange Protocol parts 1 & 2

There is some really good stuff there.

It is also appropriate to mention that LiST was one of the founding participants in EDRM’s XML 1 project.

Jonathan Maas of DLA Piper and a member of LiST has thoughtfully commented on the XML EDRM announcement by noting the two organizations did keep each other apprised. His comment to The Orange Rag can be found here (click).

On the Mark caught up with George Socha yesterday and asked him about LiST, EDRM and the XML standard:

“The LiST Group was a participating member of the initial EDRM XML project. Like EDRM, the LiST Group is focused on streamlining and improving the e-discovery process and moving forward. We hope to work closely with them to leverage each other’s knowledge and work.

“The 1.0 EDRM XML XSD is ready. We are in the final stages of putting together a distribution mechanism and as soon as that mechanism is in place we will make the XSD available. We should have this mechanism in place shortly.

“The EDRM XML 2 group is also in the process of developing a validation tool. That tool should be ready to use by the end of the year. The EDRM XML 2 group also is preparing documentation to accompany the XSD and validation tool.”

Here at On the Mark, we await the international e-discovery community’s response and the dialog towards adoption of a standard.

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Comments about the EDRM XML XSD should be sent to Tom Gelbmann (tom@gelbmann.biz) or to George Socha at (george@sochaconsulting.com).

By Mark Reichenbach - October 23, 2007 

The EDRM today announced the release of a standard XML format to be used in the exchange of electronic data between applications. The industry has long needed this standard and it’s a good thing. Let me tell you why.

You could look at this as a “Universal Load File” — a very useful thing for corporations with disparate systems and service providers who must support them.  I’d look for this XML format to be helpful to opposing parties who must “meet and confer” under the FRCP for their 26(f) conferences as far as agreeing on a particular data load file format.

“The XML standard addresses a major pain point within E-Discovery - moving and formatting the different types of data across all of these disparate systems - and is an important step toward streamlining the process,” says George Socha, co-founder of EDRM and president of Socha Consulting LLC. “By adopting this standard, MetaLINCS is taking a leadership position in creating greater efficiencies within the e-discovery process.”

It is interesting to note that ALL the participating organizations had representatives involved in the creation of this standard. Zantaz, Summation, Concordance and MetaLINCS all contributed to the effort. Many others involved in EDRM have committed to supporting the XML standard by February’s LegalTech. 

Make no mistake, this XML format is now cued up to become the industry standard as we march ahead. Yet as important as this initiative is to the industry I’m surprised at some of the organizations that did NOT participate in EDRM, at all.

“The XML interchange is a natural fit with how we architected the MetaLINCS e-discovery software platform. From its earliest inception, MetaLINCS’s goal has been to empower companies to perform on-premise E-Discovery with an open, scalable platform that would easily integrate with their existing products and services,” says Chuck Williams, chief technology officer at MetaLINCS. “Unlike point products, the MetaLINCS Enterprise E-Discovery Suite is a completely integrated application that addresses all the core processes of E-Discovery and enables data exchange through an open set of APIs. The EDRM XML standard makes this data interchange more reliable and flexible, increasing accuracy and efficiency and reducing costs for our customers.”

As an old Litigation Support guy from way back, I can recall countless hours of massaging data load files, writing scripts and reading more “import failed” messages, so much so it hurt, all in an effort to get data out of one system and into another. If only this had come along back then!

Fritz Mueller, Senior Director of Product Management for MetaLINCS said

“Now that version 1.0 of the XML standard has been ratified it will be relatively easy to make enhancements to the standard that the whole industry can agree on.  It creates a framework that can be enhanced to exchange more sophisticated types of data.”

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What Fritz does’t mention is the sheer effort and dedication those who participated showed in developing version 1.0 because that’s the hard part! Hat’s off to all those who helped develop a standard that brings real help to a community that can use it.

Now we’re talking (in the same language)!

About EDRM

The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project was launched in 2005 to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the electronic discovery market. The completed reference model provides a common, flexible and extensible framework for the development, selection, evaluation and use of electronic discovery products and services. Information about EDRM is available at http://www.edrm.net.  

View EDRM’s press release here.