The P0stmaster's Blog: 10/01/2004

2004-10-31

New white paper from Microsoft describing how they handle the massive volumes of spam they receive. Great read!

Carr, Sylvia. You can't outsource email compliance headaches. Silocon.com. Oct. 28, 2004.

You can't outsource email compliance headaches

Email Privacy Protection Called into Question by Federal Appeals Court Decision. Policy Post 10.13, Center for Democracy & Technology. July 30, 2004.

Policy Post 10.13 | Email Privacy Protection Called into Question by Federal Appeals Court Decision

Sarbanes-Oxley - another law to ignore? Silicon.com. Oct. 21, 2004.

Discussion of accountability and limitation of risk through implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance mechanisms. Good quotes and references to SAS, Enron, Baring's merchant bank.

2004-10-29

[Vendor Press Release]. OutIndex to Enter Email Archiving Market. OutIndex. Oct. 29, 2004.

You may recall me blogging about this company awhile back ... I was running a comparison of OutIndex versus LookOut and other desktop PST indexing technologies. At the time OutIndex was unable to complete indexing my PSTs, despite numerous calls on the phone with the founder and hours spent trying to get it working. I'm not surprised to see OutIndex trying to get into the e-mail archiving market, ... I'd caution people evaluating the OutIndex solution to (i) consider the company size (this is a *very* small company ... ) and (ii) if you decide to perform a technical evaluation, to thoroughly test scalability and indexing speed.

Quest MessageStats 5.0 Released. Oct. 5, 2004.

Just realized I haven't blogged on this yet ... one of the products that I'm the product manager for currently - Quest MessageStats - has recently completed its largest-ever launch ... the launch of MessageStats 5.0. See this page for more information and numerous sample screenshots: http://wm.quest.com/products/messagestats/ ... read the what's new document at: http://wm.quest.com/library/getdocument.asp?target=qmswn ... and evaluate the product's business value by reading the product overview at http://wm.quest.com/library/getdocument.asp?target=qmspo.

Reuters. Google acquires online map provider Keyhole. CNN Money. Oct. 27, 2004.

More consolidation in the search & indexing space that's becoming more and more important across the industry, be it to do with compliance or otherwise.

2004-10-27

Hildebrand, Carol. E-mail management: The curse of the killer app. SearchStorage.com. Oct. 27, 2004.

STRATEGIC STORAGE E-mail management: The curse of the killer app

Microsoft Corporation. Exchange Server Management Pack Guide for MOM 2005. Microsoft.com. Oct. 26, 2004.

New document from Microsoft discussing the Exchange Management Pack (available for Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003, not Exchange 5.5) for Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005.

Lim, Jeanne. Corporate sentinels. Intelligent Enterprise Asia Online. Oct. 25, 2004.

Discussion of the increased importance of content filtering of e-mail within corporate networks.

[Vendor Press Release] IMlogic Enables Hedge Funds to Meet New SEC Regulations with Instant Messaging Compliance Quickstart Package. Oct. 26, 2004.

Smart move by Francis de Souza and the folks at IMlogic. Another company trying to ride the Sarbanes-Oxley wave ... this time for Instant Messaging. Francis, btw, used to be President of Sendit back when Microsoft purchased them ... their technologies grew into RVP-based Exchange 2000 Instant Messaging capabilities ... then Francis left Microsoft to form IMlogic. Now they're in deep partnership with Microsoft it seems ...

2004-10-26

Stevenson, Rachel. Electronic censors help war on office sexism. IOL. Oct. 26, 2004.

Some good examples of companies in which e-mail has gotten them into hot water. Specifics provided in some cases.

Fox, Pimm. E-mail Has the Power to Destroy. Computerworld. Oct. 25, 2004.

E-mail Has the Power to Destroy - Computerworld

[Press Release]. Purdue to Assist Law Enforcement With e-Mail Forensics. Purdue University. Oct. 25, 2004.

Newsroom - Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick

Taub, Eric A. Now, e-mail, TV, in cars. The Indian EXPRESS. Oct. 27, 2004.

Discussion of Japanese and European cars emerging on the market from Fiat and other manufacturers that permit drivers to read or listen to their e-mails while driving (well, hopefully while stopped ... but we know that won't always be the case). Makes me wonder if e-mail is actually stored locally in the cars ... presumably it's just webmail of sorts. I want one ...

[Vendor Press Release] New Archiving Appliance from NorthSeas Launches Vendor-independent E-mail Management. NorthSeas. Oct. 26, 2004.

New appliance called the NorthSeas Guard E/N for e-mail archival announced by Ottawa-based NorthSeas AMT.

2004-10-25

[Vendor Press Release] Microsoft Celebrates Successful First Anniversary of Exchange Server 2003. Microsoft Corporation. Oct. 24, 2004.

Happy anniversary Microsoft Exchange Server 2003!

Ambasna-Jones. Getting the message. Computer Reseller News. Oct. 25, 2004.

Getting the message

2004-10-22

Kahn, Randolph A. Measure the Total Cost of Failure. Transform. Nov. 2004.

This is an outstanding article, well worth a read. The concept of measuring the Total Cost of Failure is a very suitable way of approaching compliance-related initiatives. Deciding whether to address compliance-related issues and deploy related technologies along with appropriate procedures and policies in an effort to mitigate risk talks to much, much more than traditional ROI and TCO models address. I'd go as far as saying this is a "must read" from a compliance perspective.

Fried, Ina. Microsoft fixes date for desktop search tool. ZDNet. Oct. 22, 2004.

More on the desktop search/indexing race between Microsoft, Google & Yahoo. Will have an impact on the compliance space.

Microsoft Issues Spark RSS Discussion. theWHIR's Web Host News. Oct. 21, 2004.

RSS is definitely getting alot of attention these days as blogs (such as this one) gain increasing popularity rapidly. A day will come when compliance-related issues turn their attention towards the content streaming across RSS feeds.

Olsen, Stefanie. Yahoo buys e-mail search company. ZDNet. Oct. 21, 2004.

Interesting move by Yahoo. Acuisition of Stata Labs brings Bloomba content/attachment search tool for e-mail to Yahoo.

2004-10-20

Claburn, Thomas. Break-In At Berkeley May Have Compromised Data Of 1.4 Million Californians. InformationWeek. October 20, 2004

This story about the now-widely-publicized theft of UCBerkley's database containing 1.4 million Californians' Social Security numbers raises an interesting point from a compliance perspective. Many organizations spend a ton of time focused on identifying areas of elevated permissions (i.e., per Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Section 404, etc.) ... yet ignore almost entirely the usage profiles of individuals already "authorized" to access the data in question. Yet, as this story demonstrates, that addresses only part of the issue.

Ferris Research. Email Archiving Survey: Email as Formal Business Records Webinar. Oct. 13, 2004.

Looks like a good seminar.

Barnako, Frank. Evidence Piles Up in E-mail. Investors.com. Oct. 19, 2004.

Good article on the need for discovery of e-mail .... keep in mind the 4 main places you need to be able to discover for compliance reasons ... in your Exchange servers, in your backups, in your archives and in PSTs throughout your environment (unless you can manage PSTs/restrict them/archive them/etc.).

2004-10-19

Morphy, Erika. Microsoft Announces New Storage Vision. Enterprise Windows I.T. - Data Storage Today. Oct. 7, 2004.

Good coverage of the Microsoft Data Protection Server (DPS) announcement recently.

Eldredge, Chris. Preparing the Marketing Department for Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance. DMNews. Oct. 18, 2004.

Interesting perspective on SOX.

2004-10-18

Lei, Tao Ai. When data overflows. Asia Computer Weekly (ACW). Oct. 18, 2004.

Discussion of data overload esp. pertaining to SME space. Also mention of corporate governance, regulatory compliance, privacy and other related issues.

2004-10-17

Paczkowski, John. If we keep our e-mail longer than 30 days, it starts to smell. SiliconValley.com. Oct. 11, 2004.

More coverage of Microsoft vs. Burst.com with some mention of e-mail retention policies and Microsoft's attempts at e-mail recovery.

Savvas, Antony. Blackberry rivals offer mobile e-mail choice. ComputerWeekly.com. Oct. 12, 2004.

Wireless adoption continues to grow and wireless e-mail will continue to pose an ever-increasing challenge to corporate compliance efforts.

Strupp, Joe. To E-Mail or Not to E-Mail: Can Reporters Offer Views in Private Correspondence? Editor & Publisher. Oct. 15, 2004.

Recent journalist who's private e-mails found their way into the limelight reinforces the oft-repeated warning to be careful what you put in writing or in e-mail.

Sutton, Neil. Ontario Ministry Labours to Retrieve e-mail Lost in Crash. ITBusiness.ca. Oct. 13, 2004.

Wonder how the Ministry of Labour is doing with their Exchange recovery ... post here if you hear of any updates ...

Khamsi, Roxanne. Paralysed man sends e-mail by thought breaking science news headlines. Nature.com. Oct. 13, 2004.

This really makes you think about e-mail ...

EU wants phone, e-mail data. The Washington Times. Oct. 16, 2004.

More anti-terrorism legislation in the works ... this time in the EU. Affecting phone and e-mail data ...

Microsoft Exchange - protecting it, managing it and keeping it running. AME Info Business News. Oct. 12, 2004.

Article from our Arab friends on the importance of protecting, managing and keeping Microsoft Exchange environments running.

Lent, Colleen. Shouting inappropriate, even via e-mail messages. Seacoastonline. Oct. 17, 2004.

Proposed 10 e-mail/Internet etiquette tips.

Grieg, Jane. Follow that e-mail. The Kansas City Star. Oct. 15, 2004.

Short Q&A on traceability of e-mail.

Gammill, Andy. School Board set to tweak policy on employee e-mail. Indystar.com. Oct. 15, 2004.

Example of appropriate e-mail usage policy at Washington Township School Board.

2004-10-16

[Vendor Press Release]. Online Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Resource Completes Successful Beta, Launches. eMediaWire. Oct. 13, 2005.

Looks like an interesting new portal focused on SOX info for CXO level individuals.

Weiss, Todd R. Google Desktop Search app lets you 'google' your Windows PC. Computerworld. Oct. 15, 2005.

Interesting new application from Google called the Google Desktop Search program. Desktop indexing/cataloging and search will be an interesting space to watch over the coming year or so. I imagine this will end up heading down the compliance road as well with more powerful enterprise search capabilities with desktop reach just around the corner.

2004-10-15

Taulli, Tom. Nightmare on Sarbanes Street. The Motley Fool. Oct. 13, 2004.

Interesting short story on SOX with mention of some public companies who have decided to go private to avoid the implications of SOX. Amusing Bismarck quote as well.