Online Storage For Lawyers? 287
alharaka writes "I have a relative that has been a lawyer for over two decades. In passing conversation, he revealed to me that he has a great deal of his data stored on floppies. Naturally, as an IT guy, I lost it on him, telling him that a one-dimensional storage strategy of floppies was unacceptable. If he lost those files, his clients would be enraged. Since I do not know much about online data storage for lawyers, I read a few articles I found on Google. A lot of people appear to recommend CoreVault, since a few bar associations, including Oklahoma, officially endorsed them. That is not enough for me. Do any Slashdotters have info on this topic? Do you have any companies you would recommend for online data storage specifically for lawyers? My relative is a lawyer with recognition in NJ, NY, CA, and DC; are there any rules and regulations you know of regarding such online storage he must comply with? I know IT and not law. I am aware this is not a forum for legal advice, but do any IT professionals who work for law firms know about such rules and regulations?"
Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
TrueCrypt? (Score:5, Funny)
Come to think of it, I think we should store them in *actual* true crypts... ;-)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
*actual* true crypts at the bottom of the sea.
That way you get a natural coral reef.
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't the Somalian pirates pissed off enough at us with the environmentally damaging wasted dumped into their oceans? They'll declare a full scale war if we start dumping lawyers there (and War +2 if they wash up on shore).
Re: (Score:2)
Lawyers are there to defend people that hire them. Do you want to be unable to hire someone to defend you in court while you have no knowledge about laws and regulations to defend yourself? Didn't think so either.
What we need is to send corrupted people with a lot of power to the bottom of the ocean. Along with the faulty parts of the human instinct and then get rid of goverments, get together and live a peaceful live where we dedicate ourselves to art, science and other communistic, hippy and anarchy style
Re: (Score:2)
Only if the orbital nukes would still work...
You know... you can't be sure enough.
Maybe that is how Zombies are created.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
For persistency, I like to store them in the freezer.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
I thought it was the Judicial Array of Inexpensive Lockers that held the striped lawyers....
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
This does have an issue with degradation of the lawyers over time, but that's OK... it feeds into our COMP-Office Services Technology department.
Re: (Score:2)
Too much electricity. Massive Carbon Footprint.
What's wrong with a bunch of big 'ole tin cans? Shelves 'O Lawyers. It might look like a Sam's Club.
When the expiration date is reached, either take out the parts and re-can 'em . . . or sell them off as government surplus.
Re: (Score:2)
I firmly believe we should store lawyers online.
...and then nuke it from orbit.
Re: (Score:2)
I completely disagree. I think all lawyers should be taken offline and powered down immediately. It's for the good of humanity!
Re: (Score:2)
Aaron,
Do you realize how much wasted space that would be?
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously, its like he thinks the internet is just a big dumptruck. Everyone knows that it is a series of tubes. All those lawyers would clog the tubes. It might take one of my staff a whole day to send me an internet again.
Sincerely,
Ted Stevens, former Senator
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I'd like to see more stored at /dev/null
Re: (Score:2)
/dev/random might be a little more fun.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"A good start", right?
A Few Helpful Lists (Score:5, Informative)
As a lawyer with recognition in NJ, NY, CA, and DC, are there any rules and regulations you know of regarding such online storage he must comply with?
Ahahahahaha, you are asking Slashdot for advice on legal rules and standards to assist a lawyer?
Look, you're probably going above and beyond what a normal lawyer did back in the day: throw a piece of paper in a filing cabinet in his office. Subject to fire and theft, sure, but I doubt the law has changed enough to make that illegal. CoreVault looks good, you can also visit each of the state bar association pages you listed and find things like NY State Bar Association offering a discount at VENYU for offsite data storage [nysba.org] which is probably as close as you'll get to an endorsement. Have you thought about calling each state bar association office and asking them what they use/recommend?
Re:A Few Helpful Lists (Score:5, Informative)
IAAL and using any of these services is suicide.
Store your documents IN A FIREPROOF SAFE or VAULT ON PAPER.
Use a document scanner for retrieving them if you lose the electronic originals.
Disclosure to a 3rd party is suicide as your atty-client confidentiality could be lost (what happens if the 3rd party gets subpoenas?). Losing data is suicide because it shows a lack of due diligence.
Use paper. It works. or burn to 2X archival CDR and THEN use paper. whatever floats your boat.
Re:A Few Helpful Lists (Score:5, Informative)
I've never understood the online storage appeal for just about any commercial entity, but for a law firm, that just ain't gonna happen.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> I've never understood the online storage appeal for just about any commercial entity, but for a law firm, that just ain't gonna happen.
I have the theory that lawyers get seduced by the seals stamped on papers -and like gamers, the have a special appeal for the more 3d ones- (obviously, digital firms are not understandable nor artistic, so any kind of digital storage is secondary.) That "seduction" is so strong that they yet carry the idea that more seals = more authentic.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Commercial entities usually love it for a number of reasons.
If my building burns down, they have a copy.
If I get infected with something that wipes out/corrupts my data, they have a copy.
They have a dedicated IT staff that specifically manages the security and integrity of my data. I do not.
They have facilities specifically designed to safely store my data. I may not.
There are lots of good reasons.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If I get infected with something that wipes out/corrupts my data, they have a copy.
Yawn. The backup to the backup should be in the managing partner's house. It's ultimately his or her job anyway.
They have a dedicated IT staff that specifically manages the security and integrity of my data. I do not.
They have facilities specifically designed to safely store my data. I may not.
Talking different levels of money here, that's all. Online storage i
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed, but I think lots of SME's treat online backup as a magic bullet (it's the same type of thinking that says Symantec = no risk of virus infection).
You hear what happened to Carbonite recently?
re: online storage and appeal (Score:2)
Let me first throw out everyone's favorite acronym: IANAL
That being said, I used to do on-site service and consulting work for a number of area law firms, and saw several different backup strategies they employed.
Where I saw the online storage concept being put to best use was for email. The law offices I've seen who tried to run their own mail server, in-house, were *always* putting their data at some level of risk of loss.
In some cases, you had firms using Novell Groupwise as their messaging system, a l
Re:A Few Helpful Lists (Score:5, Interesting)
You do know that you can back up to a 3rd party and still maintain sole access to the data, correct? All of our backups are encrypted using a 448bit key that only we have access to. If our backup provider is subpoenaed they can give all my data to whoever they want, it's just a meaningless binary blob.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
bah. (Score:3, Funny)
What you really need to keep your data secure is use a secure password like the one we use at my company -- 23$wu!x6 -- we've been using that password for a while now and never had any problems.
Re:Encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The banks (I worked in) did it by storing half of a key in two safes, two different managers have access to their particular safe. Each is asked to enter their half of the key when it's required (get's them involved in the data's ownership too). No one actually knows the entire key.
It's a function of the role to have appropriate access. YMMV
Re:A Few Helpful Lists (Score:4, Interesting)
If they do that, then the information is protected against attorney-client privilege. Practically no judge would allow that privilege to be broken, so any warrants given under those circumstances would be thrown out.
Re: (Score:2)
Disclosure to a 3rd party is suicide as your atty-client confidentiality could be lost (what happens if the 3rd party gets subpoenas?). Losing data is suicide because it shows a lack of due diligence. Use paper. It works. or burn to 2X archival CDR and THEN use paper. whatever floats your boat.
I think that might be resolved by encryption, like plausible deniability. [truecrypt.org]
Then again, if client/attorney relationship is a problem, and the client is paranoid, have him encrypt the documentation himself with his public key, send it to you encrypted further with your public key, and store it somewhere. This way, the only way to access those backups will be by asking both for the private keys, and no one can tamper with the actual content indipendently of the other.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:A Few Helpful Lists (Score:5, Informative)
IAAL too, and I wouldn't feel comfortable with any particular service in which the service owner could have access to my files or the keys/passwords for decryption. I simply won't entrust my data to a third party, not even my calendar to Google Calendar. I do however perform nightly automated backups to a remote server.
My system works like this:
- in my office, tar the data into a single file, encoding the date into the filename.
- mcrypt that tar file.
- transfer the encrypted tar to a virtual private server via ssh. (*)
- on the VPS, I have a script that keeps a set of my backup files: the last 7 days are kept, and then mondays for the previous 7 weeks.
The risk is that my VPS or another VPS on the remote machine might be hacked and my data files exposed. However, because the data files are encrypted as well as can be by present standards, it is highly unlikely that the actual data will be exposed even if my account was hacked. The person would simply get a set of encrypted files. I suppose it would be possible for a person to grab my files, and 20 years later decrypt them. I think that worry starts to get a bit foil-hatish in that I don't work with terribly sensitive information -- at least not the kind that someone will wait decades to be able to decrypt.
Even if my data was somehow decrypted, I feel that I have performed sufficient due diligence under the rules in my state (**). In fact, there is no data existing anywhere that cannot through some highly contrived set of circumstances, cannot be revealed. I do feel I'm doing a better job than if I merely stored the files in a locked storage closet. Taking a bolt cutter to a masterlock and then trundling off CDs, papers, or thumb drives is way easier than decrypting my files. Any safe I can afford can probably be picked in 30 seconds by some 13 year old kid looking for cred on YouTube. Lastly, I have no doubt my encrypted files on the VPS are more secure than files located on a computer through which the internet is accessed by a web browser.
Anyway, I do feel I'm going beyond what most lawyers do with backup security. Of course there are certain unlikely possible breaches -- but I'm not required to protect against all of them. For example, I don't need to personally hand deliver all paper documents because I'm allowed to use the mail. What could be less secure than documents protected by a paper envelope?
As an added bonus, because my backups are nearly 3000 miles away (I'm on the Pacific, my VPS is on the Atlantic), even a devastating regional disaster will not cause me to lose data. If a disaster is so bad as to stretch from sea to shining sea -- my files will be the least of anyone's concern.
(*) I only get 15gb of space, but it only costs $10/month. It's running CentOS 5, no webserver or anything else, just ssh.
(**) Comment to WA State RPC 1.6 (confidentiality and information):
[17] When transmitting a communication that includes information relating to the representation of a client, the lawyer must take reasonable precautions to prevent the information from coming into the hands of unintended recipients. This duty, however, does not require that the lawyer use special security measures if the method of communication affords a reasonable expectation of privacy. Special circumstances, however, may warrant special precautions. Factors to be considered in determining the
reasonableness of the lawyer's expectation of confidentiality include the sensitivity of the information and the extent to which the privacy of the communication is protected by law or by a confidentiality agreement. A client may require the lawyer to implement special security measures not required by this Rule or may give informed consent to the use of a means of communication that would otherwise be prohibited by this Rule.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahahahahaha, you are asking Slashdot for advice on legal rules and standards to assist a lawyer?
I think he was hoping for two replies:
1) NYCL, or one of our other resident lawyers, giving him the advice he needs.
2) Someone else replying to that lawyer, saying simply "/thread".
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Or
3) He was hoping for the lawyers to identify themselves to build a list of names for the Ark B.
Why online? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why online? (Score:5, Insightful)
Copying everything to a couple of USB drives is exactly the sort of thing that is easy to forget to do, and potentially disastrous. Far better to pay a fee that, for a bunch of mostly text documents and some
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on the size of his office, I'd either suggest a full-fledged CMS, or using a secured backup service like the ones available from Iron Mountain.
For a couple thousand bucks a year, he could have all his data and documents backed up daily by Iron Mountain. Not sure about legal requirements, though -- but if you call them, any vendor who is qualified will be able (and happy) to provide compliance certs or letters for the states in question.
Re:Why online? (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of these companies currently use a third-party warehouse with locked cages and transfer photocopies of court documents there for off-site storage, and want something a bit more high-tech.
The best solution I've come across is an on-site RAID-5 NAS with hourly snapshots. If they can store their data on floppies now, it is almost certainly less than 1GB. Put this on a three or four 250GB disks in a RAID-1 array (no point in RAID-5 when you've got that little data - go for the extra redundancy) which takes (volume-level) snapshots every hour (something like GEOM or ZFS snapshots). Every work night, burn the latest snapshot to a DVD and give it to the boss to take home and put in his safe. He should store the most recent 5 backups there and, n week-end backups. If you're not using ZFS on the server then make sure you're using something else to check for single-sector corruption.
Note: This is not legal advice. I know some law firms one accountancy firm who use this system, but I am probably not in your jurisdiction and you may have additional regulatory / legal requirements. Fortunately, if you are a law firm, you can probably consult a lawyer and get some legal advice cheaply...
Re:Why online? (Score:5, Insightful)
HAHAHA hahahahahahahahahaha ha ha, whew. That's funny. Who is loading the dvd drive?
Gather 'round boys and girls, it's story time. My dad was a lawyer for somewhere around 30 years. At the time, he and 4 other partners togeather made up their law firm. Because each of them were essentially seperate from each other, they tended to have their files stored either on their own comptuer, or on their secretary's computer.
My dad was smart enough to know that this probably wasn't the best setup, so he hired an "IT Professional" to fix this problem. The computer guy came in and set them up with a small server which would be a centeral repository for digital files. This server would then do daily (possibly weekly, can't recall) backups. The secretarys would then take the tape home with them over night.
Not a bad setup. This system was in place for several years. One day, one of the secretaries computer's HDD died. The office called the guy that had setup this system for them to have the HDD replaced. What happened next will require a new paragraph.
I get a call that day from my Dad. I was weeks away from graduating from Computer Engineering at a local technical school. My dad calls, clearly upset. Apperantly a while ago there was some problem that they had to call the "IT Guy" for. The "IT guy", in the process of fixing that problem, changed it so that the secretarys computers and I think 1-2 of the lawyer comptuer backed up to one of the secretary's comptuers, and not the server. Well, guess which computer died? You know it, the secretary's computer that was holding the backups it shouldn't have been.
No problem right? They were taking weekly backups and taking them off site. Well... Turns out that in the process of moving the backups to the secretary's computer, he was also preventing that data from being backed up. Essentially, the backups were only backing up 1/2 the data.
So, I'm just about to graduate, I get this call from my dad, and he tells me the story. I tell him what he already knows, no data should be on the comptuers, it should all be stored on the servers and backed up. The next day my dad's firm and the "IT Guy" had a meeting. This guy was scared shitless that he was going to get his pants sued off. Not all lawyers are bastards, my dad and the firm told him to send the HDD to a data recovery specialist and told the IT guy that he would be responsible for the bill. The data recovery was partially successful.
Losing that much data caused real problems at the office. Some lawyers were hit harder than others. My dad got through it just fine. My dad had a system where everything was done in triplicate. Document was saved on computer (1), printed and attached to the client file (2), I'm pretty sure that he also printed a third copy to send to Iron Mountain. When the data was lost, he still had the paper copies, the other lawyers wern't so lucky.
Having seen that, I would recommend printing and filing EVERYTHING. Most lawyers change outragous rates for printing anyways, so why not? So, I would say that you should definately take precautions against data loss, the hard copy should be your real backup.
Re:Why online? (Score:5, Insightful)
And *this*, boys and girls, is an altogether excellent example of why professional system administration talent is well worth whatever you have to pay to have it around.
Re:Why online? (Score:4, Interesting)
There was this medical device manufacturer. It had an older product, pre-microprocessor. One day, the FDA came for an inspection. When they do that, they usually send at least one person with clue, but they cross train other people and send them too. On this inspection, one of the inspector's regular job was inspecting galleys in ships (another FDA function you may not know about). This guy had been cross trained.
So, they are walking down the manufacturing line, and the employee shows them the board from the product. One of the chips has a label on on. The inspector says "PROM"? Meaning, is that chip a programmable read only memory (like today's flash, but usually one time programmable and a lot smaller). The employee says "Yes, that's a PROM". The inspector says "Checksum?" and the employee says "yes, the checksum is on the label". The inspector says "Verify?" and the employee takes the board, pulls the chip, goes over to the programmer, plugs it in and verifies that the checksum is valid.
The inspector says "Source Code?". The employee is a bit stumped. He goes away to ask some engineers who were around for a while, then goes to the manufacturing engineering guys and finally goes back to the inspector and asks them to accompany him to a storage room.
In the storage room, there are a number of 4 drawer file cabinets. The employee searches around, and finally finds the right file.
The file has the right build data on the cover. He opens the file and triumphantly removes the floppy disk with the source code on it.
An 8" floppy disk.
You know what's coming right?
No 8" drive left in the company.
Average attorney salary ~$60k/yr (Score:3, Informative)
The average attorney salary is ~$60k per year. And that is with $300k+/yr equity partners pulling the average up.
I was in my 1st year of law school when I found out that I was making more as an engineer (BSEE) than most lawyers were making. (Fortunately, my company was paying for school & guaranteeing me a job upon graduation that involved a pay-grade jump every year for 4 years.)
The truth is, there are just too many lawyers.
Most of them can't find a job in a "real" law firm. So, instead they have to
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I'm one of those poor slobs working for the Man to pay off my ridiculously-large student loans, and I still have more money than time; meaning I give myself a little $30 allowance twice a month when I get paid (you'll have to ask my wife how the rest is parceled out because I have no idea). That's humongous compared to my free time (which is just enough to post a comment on /. on occasion).
As for technical expertise, once upon a time I designed a simple RISC processor for an undergrad class, but I
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Is a USB key any more reliable than a floppy? I have had rotten luck with them lasting any length of time :(
Is the floppy the only copy? Put one back on the HD perhaps? :(
Copy to a USB HD drive.
Burn to CD/DVD. not much better than floppy again
Tape is still good longterm, a used tape drive perhaps(DDS4+controller=$100)
Paper and a file cabinet. At least paper is still readable in 10 years.
all of the above?
Why online? Does he need to access remotely? You still need (at least) one of the above in case the onlin
Online != Insecure. Options exist. (Score:2, Informative)
There's no reason online can't be secure. Online means it's automatically offsite and that a 3rd party has the time and incentive to be sure it's actually working.
2 years ago I founded https://spideroak.com/ [spideroak.com] for this exact situation -- wanting a zero-knowledge approach to encryption. We explicitly don't know anything about your data. We just see boring sequentially numbered data blocks on the server. Instead of a EULA, we have a "remember your password" agreement.
You can combine data from unlimit
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What encryption does your service use on your end?
What encryption is used to TX/RX the data from the client?
I particularly like the de-duplication aspect, however I don't trust you (as I am sure you do not trust me). Is there any issue with uploading TrueCrypt container files to your service (maximum single file size, etc.?)
Looks good, especially for $1/gig/year...
-nB
Re: (Score:2)
magneto-optical
Is that a kind of technology Ian McKellen uses when he wants to see better?
Scan and shred (Score:5, Funny)
Scan the lawyers and shred the originals. You'll be very popular.
Re: (Score:2)
May I recommend using this shredder?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYPCPB1g3o [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Eh. Any shredder that can take decent sized trees will do. Much more spectacular and makes good fertilizer. :) :) :)
omfg... (Score:5, Insightful)
a few bar associations, including Oklahoma, officially endorsed them.
I see.
That is not enough for me.
uh, huh.
Do any Slashdotters have info on this topic?
*head explodes*
Re:omfg... (Score:5, Funny)
You know, I might put Slashdot above Oklahoma. Slashdot is the biggest tech site on the internet. Oklahoma has a musical named after it.
That gives me an idea...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This guy beat you to it years ago [slashdot.org].
Who wouldn't trust tech advice from Oklahoma? (Score:2)
They've got some ace techies [centos.org] in high places!
Re: (Score:2)
Paper? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are a few problems there. Backups, storage, securing said copies, finding information in a timely fashion.
Admittedly, paper is a step up from floppies in ever way except space, but it's definitely not a great solution.
Best would be something where it's kept encrypted from computer to server, stored in two locations and where one would keep the originals encrypted when not at the keyboard.
Probably anything compliant with HIPAA would be sufficient.
What? (Score:2)
Mozy.com, you can provide your own encryption key (Score:4, Informative)
I have used Mozy for several law offices, primarily because you can specify your own 256-bit AES encryption key. Not even Mozy has access to your data.
In California the bar association regulations require that a law firm takes "reasonable care" of client data. That's it. Kinda Scary.
Re:Mozy.com, you can provide your own encryption k (Score:2, Informative)
I had a terrible experience with it, the client initially worked well, but is so badly written that as you get to multi-gigabyte volumes, the incremental scanning kills completely stalls the OS.
So: whatever you choose, test it for a while. And, most online storage services have encryption, including DriveHQ, which I switched to. Works fine so far (6 months).
Importance of backups, and plausible deniability (Score:2)
Any professional who truly values his data should back it up to the time-proven backup media -- magnetic tapes -- and have more than one copy, and each copy stored at a different offsite location.
Now having said that, since this is a lawyer you're talking about, he might deliberately wish to have his data stored on floppies so that when that data gets lost or unrecoverable, he can argue that since he is not a data storage professional expert, that he believed as a "reasonable person" would believe, that he
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently the bar associations and judges overseeing disciplinary hearings are no longer buying the "country bumpkin lawyer" defense. Or, at least, so said a lawyer who ought to know at a session at RSA last year (this _is_ Slashdot, so I'm too lazy to pull up the presentation from the Windows only USB stick they gave us as swag). There is starting to be a recognition that if you don't have the capacity to protect your clients' data, that you need to find somebody who does.
Online backup - Mozy (Score:3, Informative)
Mozy (owned by EMC [mozy.com]) has some sort of deal with the ABA [mozy.com] to give members a discount, so I would take that to be somewhat of an endorsement for use by lawyers. I'm not affiliated with them in any way -- I just know about them because their booth was across from ours at the ABA TechShow.
Insolvency, deletion, and encryption (Score:3, Interesting)
Questions to ask, if you're sure that online is the right approach:
Will customers have access to their data when the service provider goes out of business? If so, how much delay will be involved? ("You can have your data when we get the server back from the repo man").
There may be some standard telling lawyers to use reasonable care when handling privileged information. If there is, then by today's standards I'd personally argue that reasonable implies encrypted.
Is deleted data really deleted? Does it live on in backups? Is it like Google, where ghosts of departed data linger in the cloud?
The only thing I can tell you about bar association standards is that at one time the ABA was telling people that email was acceptable for communicating privileged information. I hope they're doing better now.
Re: (Score:2)
The only thing I can tell you about bar association standards is that at one time the ABA was telling people that email was acceptable for communicating privileged information.
Presumably, the rationale behind that stance was that no other common forms of privileged information is encrypted, either. And it doesn't even have to be secrete. It's just not admissible in court.
Oh my (Score:2)
I have a relative that has been a lawyer for over two decades.
I'm sorry. Have they sought treatment?
Re: (Score:2)
Apperently not. My condolences to the family.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My main concern would be privacy. You start putting confidential client files on the internet, and if anything goes wrong you are looking at a malpractice suit for sure.
I tried to explain that to a local lawyer who wanted to use gmail (unencrypted, of course) for his practice's e-mail. I could never get him to understand that there was anything even remotely wrong with doing what he wanted to do. So now he's doing it.
Just as scary, none of his clients seem to think that it's a problem.
This is one of those times that I just want to bang my head on a wall and scream (to myself, since no one else seems to listen), "Why does no one else get it?"
And by talking to other lawyers
Re: (Score:2)
Repeat after me:
Spinning magnetic storage is not a backup.
Spinning magnetic storage is not a backup.
Spinning magnetic storage is not a backup.
Spinning magnetic storage is not a backup.
Spinning magnetic storage is not a backup.
If you want to use magnetic storage for backups, use DLT or LTO tape, and make two copies, and keep them in different place.
Or, y'know, just hire a friggin sysadmin, and ask him "so, what will your backup plan be", and then get a second opinion on his answer. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Why isn't spinning magnetic storage a backup?
Sure, it's more prone to break than some other storage media, but I doubt you don't have any backup media that can't be made to break, using stuff I've got in the house right now. If you rely on a supposedly indestructible backup medium, you're setting yourself up for a real disappointment.
Just make sure you have adequate redundancy, check your backups, keep backups offsite in a safe place, and replace any failures immediately.
Re: (Score:2)
Spinning magnetic storage is not a backup. If you want to use magnetic storage for backups, use DLT or LTO tape
So, how do you read and write to those magnetic storage tapes? Do you spin them?
Seriously, use whatever the hell you want, just make sure you have multiple copies at different sites, and regularly check that you can still access the data with checksums. Two online hard drives (or whatever they use -- the point is you don't care) at different providers is a great strategy.
You get what you pay for (Score:2)
I bet you can get a legal opinion for around $150/hour.
Free legal advice is usually worth what you pay for it.
Not storage, per sé, but online collab and mo (Score:2)
I use Opengoo, an opensource suite. I don't use the online editing function, but I *DO* use the checkin/checkout/versioning of the suite. And documents, etc. can be placed in separate workspaces and tagged accordingly with only identified individuals having access to only what they need.
I have it hosted at my hosting company, which takes care of all my backup needs.
Check it out at http://www.opengoo.org./ [www.opengoo.org]
You seem to be missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Half of keeping copies of important documents is being able to retrieve them later on when you need them.
You seem to understand that, which is why you are trying to convince your relative to move his data to a more reliable storage medium.
The other half is in _not_ being able to retrieve them when it is inconvenient to do so. This is why there are floods, fires, mice, lost envelopes, poorly made photocopies and , in this case, corrupt old floppy disks. And as long as you have a storage system which is just barely good enough then you can lose anything you need to and nobody will even blink.
It's all about identifying the client's needs. Give them what they really need, not just what they ask for.
It depends (Score:2)
Irregardless, at the very minimum, the information should be stored on a series of redundant disks, whether this be a RAID or something else. A server would make the information more easily accessible as well as more secure from hardware failure. However, there is a certai
Way back when I had lawyers as clients (Score:2)
We had to support a nationwide practice, lawyers travelling worldwide, and offer the best security. Oh, and permit exchanging documents with the office staff for editing, updating with images, and of course distributing these securely to other counsel, courts, and clients.
We started with Novell iFolder, set up a clustered solution, and did encrypted backups to a remote FTP server. Today I'd do this a little differently, but iFolder still works.
'just text documents' doesn't begin to cut it. Much case mate
Re: (Score:2)
You know, script writing software has solved the revision of documents problem, right?
Put all the files in a directory, use pointers to reference them. This makes it easy to back up, removed redundant data, allows people to arrange there pointers any way they want that helps them do their job.
Getting this going with legacy data is hard, but well worth it in the long run.
iTunes for documents, if you will.
I handle the IT for an International law firm (Score:2)
I spend a lot of time worrying about this.
My recommendation is that definitely encrypt the data before, after, and over and over again. Then keep it somewhere safe outside the U.S. if confidentiality is the goal.
Sorry, but there is nowhere in the United States where your privacy is safe anymore, and I would add many European countries to that list. Encrypt it, and then spread it around to several countries with reputations for protecting privacy.
I would also not bank on keeping data in a data centers where
10000 floppies on a DVD (Score:2)
No one has yet commented that about 10000 floppies roughly equals a DL-DVD.
The idea of indexing and storing 10000 floppies is incredible. He would have mentioned it.
Therefore he does not have more than 10000 floppies.
Solution is simple.
Make a directory on the hard drive, fill it with files, burn to DL-DVD on a weekly or even daily basis.
Keep this weeks backup in the desk drawer (just in case you delete the wrong file).
Mail two weeks ago to some sort of iron mountain-esque facility. Or stick it in the bank
Wikileaks (Score:2, Informative)
Please give some good advice, which is to use the latest and best system, endorsed by important entities everywhere.
It is called "Wikileaks", and can be found using any search engine.
Have you looked at.... (Score:3, Informative)
I currently use it for backups. Some of it's coding is OSS. you get 2Gb free storage (which should be enough for you to test out the system.
Lawyer data have little archive value (Score:2)
I like Lawyers like I like my coffee (Score:2)
Ground up and in the freezer..
There are many services out there... (Score:3, Funny)
There are many services out there, but Wikileaks is what lawyers should probably be using.
M
Oh please. (Score:2)
Come on, just makes sure he buys a couple 8 GB USB flash drives or 1-2 external HDs size hardly matters. Just tell him to copy everything to the key drive, then to the HD, then at the end of the day disconnect it all and toss it into the safe. Problem solved.
The problem would be if he is running something older than Win2000 or WinXP. Then it would be painful to just plug in a usb flash or HD. At that point, I'd tell him to bite the bullet and spend the $600-900 on a decent laptop from walmart. Question him
also, (Score:3, Funny)
Where can I get a toilet seat designed specifically for lawyers?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
if GoogleArchive (or whatever) gets a subpoena, can they (be required to) surrender your whole legal strategy to the prosecution?
As far as I understand it, attorney-client privilege is stronger than doctor-client privilege -- in fact, I'm not sure if there IS a stronger commitment our laws have to privacy and confidentiality.
If a lawyer is a ridiculous n00b and uploads unencrypted data about a client to an online service, my guess is that even though he was an idiot for doing such a thing, the court would still recognize that as being protected client data and would rule it inadmissible. I mean, it might show up as front page materia
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, but do they protect against searches and seizures?
Re: (Score:2)
There is the rub.
Attorneys need more protection than that against accidental discovery. By accidental discovery I mean, one good legal search revealing other stuff.
Do you offer offshore protection in other jurisdictions other than the U.S.?