Vogel Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog : Texas Internet, Information Technology, eCommerce & E-Discovery Lawyer & Attorney Peter S. Vogel : Gardere Wynne Sewell Law Firm : Dallas TX

A recent report by the Ponemon Institute commissioned by Symantec found that nearly 60 percent of departing employees steal company data. Given the amount of information that is electronic it’s not much of a surprise since it is so easy to take data which may be attached to an email, copied to a laptop, loaded to a thumb drive, or copied to a CD. When the departing employee leaves of their own accord, they can plan to take valuable information and may be able to hide their tracks. Often times departing employees want to help their new employers, or so they think, however this can be disastrous to the new employer. This is particularly true when they are unaware that their new employee brought confidential information from a previous job.

Litigation Abounds

Often stealing company information leads to the lawsuits of theft of trade secrets that on the surface appear to be labor and employment disputes. As a result the IT department does not always get involved early enough to help avoid legal problems in discovery.

Real Example

A few years ago a former employer sued three former employees claiming that they stole trade secrets. The former employer also alleged that one of the former employees wiped his laptop clean before departing which destroyed emails, spreadsheets, and documents which contain confidential information. Based on the representation to the judge, a Temporary Restraining Order was issued against the three former employees to preclude them from using any former employer trade secrets.

Deposition of the CIO

During discovery the former employer’s CIO was deposed, and apparently not aware of what allegations that were made in the court pleadings. So the CIO testified that the day the former employee departed that he took possession of the laptop that had been purportedly wiped clean. That same day the CIO fired up the laptop and testified that there were thousands of emails, spreadsheets, and documents which he copied to his server. Then he turned the laptop over to his staff who “scrubbed” the disk, whatever that meant…and he really did not know. He got the laptop back from his staff a few months later. There was no log or chain of custody documentation regarding the laptop. At the temporary injunction hearing the former employer’s attorney did not know how to defend a claim of spoliation and as a result never got an injunction and the case soon settled.

Lesson

Before filing a lawsuit the CIO and lawyers should have had a discussion about the evidence concerning the laptop and electronic evidence, and even though the suit was filed it would have been prudent for the lawyers to have properly prepared the CIO for his deposition. Not knowing the claims proved to be a disaster on many levels.
 

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When DARPA started in 1962 as part of the US’s reaction to Russia launch of Sputnik in 1957 no one could have foreseen its evolution to 2009 with FaceBook, YouTube, and Google. A recent article questions whether we need a new Internet since the current hodgepodge is not designed for the future. Clearly there are people working on re-tooling the Internet, but how it will continue to evolve is interesting but unclear. The UK and US are busy trying to provide high speed Internet access to the every home, but the Spectrum changes for TV for HD broadcast will free up the old Spectrum and will provide new cell and Internet services unknown before.

4G is Coming

AT&T announced its plan to roll out 4G by 2011 which would replace the spotty 3G network now in use. AT&T, Verizon, and the other providers will use the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) wireless broadband which is supposed to handle downloads at 100 Mbps and uploads of 50 Mbps for every 20 MHz of spectrum…which will clearly change the way we operate today.

Do We Need a New Internet?

With the new high speed access in cell phones and at our desktops this should be a clue that it’s time to rethink the entire Internet structure. Maybe the UK and US plan for broadband access to every home will be revised based on 4G, and surely there will be an evolution in desktop computing. Not just that Microsoft and Open Source developers will offer new operating systems or browsers, but rather a major transformation about how technology is used. When in graduate school in 1972 I took a course on the computer as a public utility which was an interesting idea at the time…however it does not look like that ever happened. However the juxtaposition of 4G with the Internet may require a whole new approach to what how we operate. This should be an interesting evolution for the Internet…not Web 2.0 or Web 3.0, rather maybe Internet 2.0.

I welcome comments on this Blog.
 

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Notwithstanding all the .com failures over the past 15 years it’s unusual to see an Internet phenom change the waterfront so much as twitter. If you were otherwise not aware, twitter with a member base of about 4 million is a micro-blogging service which limits its messages to 140 characters and it just announced that it raised $35 million in third round of funding. However twitter has never had a marketing plan, and as a matter of fact twitter just hired its first director of business development. There was a lot of media attention on twitter when President Obama planned to use twitter to announce his running mate in 2008.

Is twitter on its way to being an Internet giant?
 

A recent article speculated that twitter is replacing Second Life as a business tool because of twitter’s ease of use on cell phones, takes little time to set up, and requires no software. On the other hand Second Life and other virtual worlds, require substantial time and resources to set up. Not to mention that one cannot conduct business in Second Life on your cell. Many B2B marketers are using twitter including BearingPoint, British Air, and McKinsey & Co. Dell Outlet sold hundreds of refurbished computers in a couple of hours by merely sending tweets (a twitter message).
 

Security Concerns for Social Networks
 

At a recent security conference researchers reported that apparently, without much surprise, individuals who use social networks are naïve and as a result have absolute trust in communications they receive from friends in twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. As we are all aware, with the growth of Web 2.0, millions of individuals around the world are spending vast amounts of time and energy with to these social networks. However, these security researchers demonstrated how imposters using these various Web 2.0 networks can steal identities and personal information with great ease. Given these warning of security issues we need to stay tuned for the continued evolution of twitter and the other social networks.
 

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The UK’s plan to bring broadband Internet service to every home by 2012 is a very bold plan since based on recent reports only about 68% of the UK population are currently Internet users. In the meantime about 72% of the population of the US are Internet users. However these are not exactly apples to apples comparisons since these statistics do not tell what percentages of homes have broadband, rather these statistics shed light on the number of users. In the US cable television is a major provider of Internet access, and there are still dial-up users who are primarily outside of the heavily populated regions in rural America.

What about Rural America?

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and USDA (US Department of Agriculture) are working on a joint initiative to bring high speed Internet access to the rural US over broadband over power lines (BPL), satellite, wireless, and other means. However for the most part this effort not speeding along. Specifically this Blog is being written on a computer in the rural Texas (Milam County, Texas) which has dial-up only, not WIFI, or any other broadband Internet option available. This is reality for rural America where citizens still have white and yellow pages, which is something my home in Dallas has not had for many years.

Internet in More Homes

As we look to the future of the Internet more high speed Internet access is a necessity given the proliferation of eCommerce, and expansion of Web 2.0 into Web 3.0. Of course there’s also the age divide which is changing the use of eCommerce, now that FaceBook has more than 150 Million users, the demographics have changed so that a larger and larger percentage of users are 35 or older. It seems pretty clear that as our younger generations rely on the social networking and texting, everyone has to get with it, even in rural America. Not a surprise that on January 21, 2009 (day after the Inauguration) President Obama launched his YouTube site, but equally as interesting was the following week that the Pope launched his YouTube site. Clearly both the President and Pope know that the primary way to communicate is through the Internet. The UK is on the right path, and hopefully the US will not be far behind in having high speed Internet in every home by 2012.

What priorities should America have to bring high speed Internet access to rural citizens? To every home?
 

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Check out this WatchIT video about virtual world legal issues. Since major IT businesses (including IBM and Dell) and lawyers now have a presence in Second Life, it’s time you thought about some legal issues.

Post comments about this WatchIT video.
 

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