Page 480 - Handbook of Modern Telecommunications

Network Organization and Governance 4-11

Enterprises need a records retention methodogy that is testable, scalable, and reliable. That means the
enterprise will either build it or buy it. In any case, the following items are important (GREW04):
• An archival system
• An indexing and search system
• Transformation to normalized records and to legal formats
• Authentication as well as digital encryption facilities
• Firewall and anti-intrusion systems
• Data mining facilities
• Analytics and reporting systems
• Interfaces to back-office systems like SAP or Oracle

4.1.3.3.3 Data Destruction
There are a few methods to destroy data together with storage media. They include:
• Bash it: The goal is to smash the heads into the disk platter, which probably will break the mecha-
nism, letting them access the data. A sledgehammer is usually the tool that should be applied to
the large side of the drive.
• Heat it: Heating over the Curie point, hard disk metal loses its magnetic properties.
• Smelt it: Melting hard disk drives dawn to slag.
• Microwave it: CDs can be destroyed by putting them into a microwave for 2 to 3 seconds.
• Shred it: Use this method for hard drives, CDs, and even cell phones. Shredded material can be
sent to metal recycling.
• Dismantle and demagnetize it: Hard drives are taken apart carefully and demagnetized individually.
4.1.3.4 E-Mail Management
The key in building a business case for e-mail management consists of meeting three objectives:
• Reducing legal and compliance risks
• Managing the ever-increasing costs of e-discovery
• Ensuring the availability and security of e-mail and associated records
The sources of e-mail, its attachments, and embedded files’ retention and management problems
are the result of the confluence of five unprecedented operational, legal, and technical factors, whose
impact, both individually and collectively, have grown over time (MARK06).
• Growth in volume: The rapid growth in e-mail usage and subsequent storage requirements liter-
ally overwhelmed the functional capacities of many initial e-records management systems. The
stunning increase in volume, much of which consists of duplicate copies and low-value records,
has created a comparable increase in the effort required to search, retrieve, and review relevant
records in legal and regulatory discovery activities.
• Informality of e-mail communications: Early use of e-mail manifested a false belief that this method of
communication, like telephones, was private and available only to the communicating parties. In fact,
just the opposite is true. With the metadata that is intrinsically associated with e-records, much more
information can be found out about the communicating parties than just the contents of the records.
• Growth in litigation: Growth in the volume of litigation has become an indigenous part of doing
business in several countries—in particular in the United States of America. Therefore, with this
trend, a newfound emphasis on the process and power of legal discovery has come to prominence.
This, in turn, compels improvement in the way e-mail, specifically, and e-records, generally, are
managed throughout their respective life cycles.
• Focus on compliance and enforcement: Greater private sector accountability requires more regula-
tions for business conduct. This is reflected in (1) more compliance regulations, (2) greater speci-
ficity in the regulations, and (3) increased compliance enforcement.