October 27, 2008 Program Summary |
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Electrons, the Law, and You This event featured a presentation by forensic data expert Steve Burgess, who "edutained" us with his fascinating "CSI-type" stories and practical how-to tips on protecting your data, recovering it if it becomes damaged, and dealing with the legal implications of data searches. Nothing is as instructive as hearing lessons learned the hard way from real-life case studies. Steve shared plenty of illuminating stories from his own extensive practice at Burgess Forensics. Litigation is a major area of Steve's consulting work, as he explains on his Web site: "State and Federal law have been evolving to allow and require ever-more forms of electronic data to be available for e-discovery when litigation is involved. Now discoverable data may be on hard drives, servers, thumb and flash drives, smart phones, voice mail and data in its myriad forms." Steve covered the following important ways of working with your data to make sure it is safe, accessible, and recoverable: 1) Data Protection — preventative safeguards you should have in place to keep data secure
2) Data Recovery — steps you can take if you happen to lose information because of accidents or errors
3) Legal Implications — how data can persist forever, and what it means from a legal standpoint
Read Steve's data safety and recovery tips, below, and download this handout as well as his PowerPoint presentation, linked further down. Data Safety and Recovery Tips Data Safety: Being Proactive Set up your computer workspace for success, so you won't need data recovery services. 1. Heat: Many hard disk failures are due to heat.
2. Cold: Extreme cold may cause failures as well. Dust and fur: Dust makes heat problems worse, ruins cooling fans, can gum up moving parts (like fans, or CD or floppy drives). Cats love to sit on nice warm computers and monitors, but pet fur will coat the components inside your computer like a custom kitty- or doggie-fur sweater. 3. Vibration: Is a great enemy of hard disks. We often see systems sitting on the floor, in easy reach of tapping feet, and full of dust. Impact and inkjet printers sitting too close, or on the same table, can cause too much vibration over time, as can subwoofers. Systems on slamming file cabinets are a bad idea, too. 4. Electrical: A tremendous number of drive failures are related to power surges. Fluctuations happen all day, every day in nearly every environment. Economy power strips are not much of a solution. Uninterruptible power supplies are a practical solution, as they isolate the system from the wall current.
2. Turn off at night: There are many schools of thought on this subject, but here's our view from two decades of data recovery. Turn off the computer at night and it won't be subject to the vagaries of the environment, hackers, power surges, or the occasional earthquake or flood. 3. Save: Hit the Save button frequently while working on a file or document. All too often, the crash happens at the end of a couple of hours of heavy thinking and rapid writing. Get in the habit of saving every time you stop to think.
2. Power surge: Unplug everything and let it sit for 15 minutes. Then, as above, bring the system up & check for damage. Proceed with caution. 3. Water or fire: Unplug everything. Put the hard disk in a sealed plastic bag ("zip-lock" style bags are fine) and send to us for recovery. Don't dust out or try to dry out. When dried, water can leave mineral deposits or other contaminants behind, as can smoke. 4. Symptoms:
Copyright 2008 Steve Burgess
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Electrons, the Law, and You |
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Date: | Monday evening, October 27, 2008 |
Speaker: |
Steve Burgess is a founder of the data recovery industry in 1984, has recovered the data from tens of thousands of clients' computers and media — whether owned, or seized by court order — over a time span of nearly two decades. His company, Burgess Forensics, has performed work for dozens of Fortune 500 companies, law firms, accounting and insurance firms, and for thousands of small companies and individuals, and on almost all platforms in the computing industry. |
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