EDD Update

An IPad In Court is a Gifted Legal Assistant

I've been in federal court in Mississippi for the last few days and turned to my iPad as a substitute for the paper legal pads that have been my faithful courtroom companions for nearly thirty years. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked, even discovering ways that the iPad was far superior to my dear old friend, the yellow legal pad.

Cirago CDD2000 USB 3 Hard Drive Docking Station

I'd replied, "Thank you for the offer of a review unit.  I would happily accept, except none of my systems have USB 3.0 ports, so I'd be unable to test the product effectively."  Imagine my surprise when the UPS guy delivered a Cirago CDD2000 USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station.

You'd think getting "free" stuff is a perk for a technology writer, and occasionally it is.  The MacBook Pro and iPod program that Ross Kodner arranged for a lucky group of forensic technologists five or six years ago remains unequalled.  Still, most of what people send for review is software, and much of that is--forgive the technical jargon--total crap.  Hardware is a welcome change, but testing hardware demands that I buy cards, cables or media the costs of which can outstrip the value of the product under test.  Then, if the hardware is something of substantial value, I have to return it to avoid the appearance of impropriety.  Vertu, Tesla: don't let that stop you. ;-)

Thus, I made my weekly trek to Fry's to spend $150.00 to test a $49.99 (suggested retail) device.

Product Review: Wiebetech USB WriteBlocker

I've lost count of how often I've brayed, "Lawyers have lost touch with the evidence."  We've lost our ability to dive right into the data when a new client comes in--at least if the client brings a hard drive or thumb drive.  No lawyer with half a brain plugs electronic evidence into his or her own computer and pokes around because, by now, most lawyers know about metadata, and appreciate that they can alter evidence simply by browsing it.  Can you say "spoliation?"  I knew you could.

But the alternative is also pretty ugly, being lawyers treating electronic evidence like it's radioactive.  It's sent out to expensive vendors and experts while lawyers wait days or weeks to see what's there.  Wouldn't it be great if lawyers lacking technical prowess could quickly and safely wade into the client's digital files and see what's what?

Clinching the Concept of Concept Search

As a frequent speaker, I live for the "aha" moment that lights the eyes of an audience.  It's that magical turning point when you've made a daunting technical topic accessible.  You can almost hear the, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, for making something I've long wondered about but never fully grasped clear to me." 

Yesterday, at an e-discovery conference in Austin, I watched Ed Fiducia of Inventus earn his "aha" moment describing concept search.  It's a challenging topic--one that entails shoving a host of different approaches under a broad rubric, and more math than the average lawyer wants to recall.  Then, explanations are often laced with--or should I say lacerated by?--marketing-speak.  But Ed hit the bull's-eye.

Free E-Discovery Tools that May Be Worth a Bundle

Lawyers miss being toe-to-toe with the evidence. We want to attack ESI with the same hands-on "can do" capabilities we brought to bankers boxes.  For that, everyone from solos to senior partners need simple, powerful desktop and/or web-enabled tools to search and review client data. 

The proletarian tools I imagine haven't surfaced.  The good stuff isn't cheap, and even much of the pricey stuff is relentlessly ho-hum or clunky as hell.  We need, "Quickbooks for ESI:" a tool set that's as intuitive to use, affordable and easy to master as Intuit's ubiquitous accounting application.

Two "free" tools lately hit my radar screen.  Download them, try them and see what you think.  One is a truly free utility that makes the contents of forensic computer images accessible to any Windows user.  The other is a fully-functional demo of an EDD search and review platform that isn't quite there but gets so tantalizingly close in some respects that I urge you to play with it and tell its Aussie developers how to get it right.

The Harry Potter Newspaper is Real

This past week, I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the “National Association of Government Archives & Records Administrators (“NAGARA”) Annual Conference in Seattle.  In attendance were a few well-known eDiscovery gurus including Jason Baron, Director of Litigation with the National Archives and Records Administration, and former Magistrate Judge Ronald Hedges.   Friday, we spent the day at the Microsoft Headquarters.  I was pleasantly surprised with a few of the new  innovative technologies they shared with us.  Many of these new technologies will catapult eDiscovery to a new level so I thought I would share them with you as they are just upon the horizon.

Product Review: WiebeTech Drive eRazer

As a forensic examiner, I'm leery of offering too much guidance about how to selectively delete information in undetectable ways.  Naïve reliance by bad actors on the marketing hype for data wiping tools is a forensicist's best friend.  So, chillax bad guys: that free tool you downloaded will cover up your data theft activity.  Don't give it a second thought.  In fact, why go to the trouble of using a tool?  Microsoft wouldn't call it "deleted" if it weren't truly gone, gone, gone!

But seriously, sometimes its not only good conduct to delete data, it's good sense.  Giving away that old computer?  Need to recycle hard drives used to transfer ESI in closed cases?  Buying a used drive on E-Bay and want to be sure their porn habits don't get mistaken for yours?  Deleted just doesn't mean gone.

When you need to thoroughly wipe the contents of an entire drive, there are no cost/low cost approaches you can take ranging from free software tools like Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) to activating the self-wipe routines built into hard drives manufactured since 2001.  But these require a bit more technical savvy and cabling prowess than most users possess.

So a little company called WiebeTech specializing in hardware for the computer forensic community came up with a nifty little gadget called the Drive eRazer that attaches via the most common hard drive interfaces (i.e., 2.5" laptop and 3.5" desktop PATA, plus all SATA configurations).  Then, simply sliding a switch overwrites the drive with zeroes--all without using a computer.  A drive wiped this way won't yield up data to forensic analysis but can be easily returned to service--sans its former content--with just a couple of mouse clicks.

EDD Dictionary: v1

Jones Dykstra & Associates has launched v. 1 of its EDD Dictionary, here.

Hat tip to Law.com's Sean Doherty.