Psystar Case Reveals Apple's Weak E-Discovery Practices

Apple has sold enterprise-class storage hardware and software for years, but the company has yet to embrace systematic e-mail and document retention policies that are common among publicly traded companies.

According to a recent legal filing (page 7) in the Psystar vs Apple antitrust case, Apple employees are responsible for maintaining their own documents such as e-mails, memos, and voicemails. In other words, there is no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting these documents.

E-Discovery Requests Loom for Financial Services Firms

As regulators delve into firms' archives to try to pin down responsibility for the current financial meltdown, experts anticipate that litigation will rise sharply. The FBI already announced that it is investigating Freddie Mac, AIG and Lehman, and it is expected that countless other firms will be asked to produce data to support other investigations.

Vivian Tero, program manager for compliance infrastructure at research firm IDC, says e-discovery already has risen on Wall Street's priority list. "The selling cycle [for e-discovery products and services] has become shorter. The need is immediate -- firms have regulators breathing down their backs," she explains. "Many companies are very worried and concerned, and want systems to respond [to potential e-discovery requests]."

UAB Students Uncover "Obama Speech" Virus

Computer science and criminal justice students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have uncovered a series of fraudulent e-mails that claim to link to video of Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech, but could put a visitor's personal information in the hands of criminals.

According to Gary Warner, UAB's director of research in computer forensics, the spam links to Web sites registered Tuesday in China.

Visiting the Web site requires the user to install an "Adobe Flash Player" to watch the speech. Installing it will cause all user IDs and passwords, whether for online banking, online stores, e-mail, or even chat programs, to be sent to the criminal's computer.

RNC Lined Up Computer Forensics Companies for Potential Electronic Voter Fraud Suits

Forensicon, Inc., a Chicago-based computer forensics company, was contacted last Thursday by a security firm lining up vendors to assist the Republican National Committee with consulting related to potential allegations of computerized voter fraud. It has been widely reported that electronic voting machines in many states are vulnerable to hacking by anyone with the right equipment and a few minutes' access to the voting machine.

Yesterday, noted Chicago resident Oprah Winfrey attempted to cast her vote for her candidate, but the vote failed to register correctly.

Computer Investigators Trace Digital Fingerprints

A wall of Erin Nealy Cox's office is covered with framed milestones: her law degree from Southern Methodist University, a seal from the U.S. attorney's office in the Northern District of Texas autographed by former colleagues. There are plaques from the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Postal Service and the FBI thanking her for helping convict bad guys in big cases.

"I jokingly call it the 'I love me wall,' " says Ms. Nealy Cox, who spent 10 years as a federal prosecutor.

The former assistant U.S. attorney was so adept at computer hacking and intellectual property that the feds chose her for a nationwide SWAT team that hunts down and prosecutes cyber-criminals.

Now, as managing director of Stroz Friedberg LLC's new Dallas office, the 38-year-old hopes to do for the for-profit world what she did for the public good: recover information thought to be lost to delete keys or hidden in cyberspace.

Think of it as CSI: Corporate America, and Ms. Nealy Cox as chief investigator Horatio Caine.