Looks like there is now a forum setup to spearhead the open source (code engine) for ediscovery. The FreeEed.org invites folks to join in the movement. I guess even law firms (not sure about lawyers themselves) are welcome, as noted that DLA Piper is supporting open source software.

See you there!

What has been stated is that the review process is the most expansive aspect of edisc (i.e. expansive labor and time and voluminous document). So much so that predictive coding is now not only a tool used for the review process but also has become a topic of its own in the US courts. Is the review process also the most difficult of the edisc process? If you answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, why do we need predictive coding?
Perhaps some answers (hopefully with relevant questions raised too) will appear in the new book Predictive Coding for Dummies book.

I wonder why there are no Dummies or Idiot’s Guide to the review process, instead one on predictive coding. I guess it is easier to write about a piece of tool/technique and not too easy to write on the review process or not profitable enough to do so.

This morning I saw a tweet which caught my attention, a twitter I recently added to my @insuredatarisk account. This account is for all ‘stuff’ related to computing stuff. Computing stuff in my vocabulary includes data or cyber risk, processes, agile, computer or information security, people in computing and anything else that ‘bugs’ me to my core or rather anything that ignites my interest in computing. After all I choose to study mathematics and computing and not music (always wanted to play classical guitar) or medicine (which was what my dad wanted!).

Lately I have been reflecting on why I cannot let ‘GO’ of my interests in computing stuff even after spending most of last 10 years exploring other fields like law, dispute resolution and my interests in energy healing and yoga. I guess I will never know why, the same reason as why I choose mathematics and computing as my 1st degree even though I have not done computing in my college subjects. Something ‘bugs’ me then and still manages to continue to ‘bugs’ me now.

I wonder why folks don’t talk about ‘bugs’ anymore, instead they use ‘errors’ like the software update errors that caused and still causing the RBS banking service downtime.  Will there be blogs from computing folks about how such errors can occur? Perhaps not, as such errors are not interesting ‘bugs’ to expose.

I just read this blog - less is exponentially more – and the ‘bugs’ got me to blog today and got me thinking about my effort to consolidate my sites.

For now, I will keep things ‘simple’ until I have figure out a way to simplify my many bugging interests.

A bug for thought – surely RBS has a business continuity or business recovery plan. Mmm…maybe they do have computer recovery planning but can’t execute the plan. Like having an ediscovery/edisclosure plan is simple enough. The buggy bits are in the execution, which ain’t that simple.  Is there a similar ‘Go’ plan to execute that is simple to the core?

More bugs to ponder…

oops my categories have disappeared from this site! More bugs to look into.

The definition of information assurance is given as ‘Information Assurance (IA) is the confidence that the information assets within an organisation are reliable, accurate, secure and available when required’. Worth noting that in ediscovery, the confidence that information is available when required is not assured.

It seems (to me) that IA is not a common or widely understood or used term in the business or corporate world at large. Similarly in the software development world, IA is not part of the design vocabulary. I wonder why…

According to Prof Brian Collins (one of the presenters), IA started life as computer security. To me, the term computer security itself is now replaced (or misplaced?) by cyber security. One of the unintended consequence with the consumerism (of IT), which I refer to as the exploitation of IT, is that the knowledge gap between the consumers of IT and exploiters of IT is blurring at the vast sea of information. It is blurring as information is branded under business intelligence or security intelligence or even cyber intelligence. Where is IA?

Also, watch out for term such as ‘people assurance’ (as mentioned by Prof Brian Collins). How to strike a balance between people assurance and information assurance?
The IAAC workshops and seminars are worth watching out for, even though I am clueless on ‘people assurance’. Perhaps the clues are in the previous workshops/seminars.

Paper.li seems to use the twitter (or google+, facebook) handler/user to anchor the data stream and then allow tags/keywords to search/pull for the tagged content across handlers and their contents. Paper.li then sifts, sorts and aggregates (i.e. curate the cluttered web?) into the typical paper-style categories, with one interesting aspect i.e. allowing user-defined tagged-categories. The semantic web put into practise?

I have three twitter accounts, one for fun/social/friends, one for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) stuff, and one for ediscovery/edisclosure (edisc) stuff. So far, my edisc twitter has the largest followers and the largest klout. Currently my tags are cyber, agile, databreach, and cyberinsurance. I wonder what my paper, The Data Chain, will reveal if I use tags on edisclosure and ediscovery. Since I have the largest followers on edisc stuff, I guess The Data Chain paper will be choked with edisc stuff. These tags and also twitter lists will be use in the next edition of The Data Chain.

Like picking up any new technology or looking to make sense of the new technology, I start with looking at the new technology with references to established methodologies, approaches or techniques or simply methods. These established methods are still around, come cloud or no cloud.

I have heard references of cloud computing in terms of outsourcing or another way of addressing or outsourcing your computing costs. So folks also talk about cloud computing in terms of opex and/or capex. Is cloud computing new technology or another way to talk about outsourcing your computing costs?

After reading this excellent write up on Cloud Computing, my initial skepticism on cloud computing turns into childish delight! Ah! It makes sense to have the 4 letters i.e. SaaS, PaaS, IaaS to describe cloud computing in terms of services. It seems that cloud computing does resemble outsourcing except that with outsourcing one is led to address business function/activities instead of computing services. My next question -what services are offered by cloud computing that will radically change the way I work or use technology? An ediscovery question in cloud computing – will (or is) cloud computing radically change (changing) the ediscovery scene?

Right now I can’t think of any (cloud) services except that I will have to figure out what data do I consider cloud worthy. This sounds familiar in outsourcing too. The same question as what is core to my business, I keep in control and not outsource also applies to cloud computing. At the lowest level, is data core to my business? A tough question or a non question! There will be established or seasoned/reasoned questions which are irrelevant in cloud computing.

Businesses outsource their core function as ‘core’ is not an accounting concept or an IT concept. We don’t talk about core accounting costs or core computing/technological data or services. Do we?

It seems the focus is no longer on ‘core business’ or even services. Cloud computing is driving the way we handle or our ability to handle data – period. The signs are around us e.g. ‘Big Data’ and ‘BYOD’.

I am not interested in what cloud computing delivers, it is what data to ‘outsource’/give up to cloud service providers. There is data protection act (soon a law in itself) and privacy related concerns. It will be interesting to see whether the changes to the data regime will define further questions or will the changes redefine the way cloud computing is currently defined. I have not come across a piece of legislation that changes the way technology is defined (& hence it’s course of design, development and deployment). It is a known fact that law plays catch up in terms of technology. The ‘right to be forgotten‘ is probably the policy/rule makers’ way of acknowledging that computing is beyond ‘legal codifying’. Perhaps the policy makers in mixing data protection with privacy wanted to recapture the concept of privacy as defined by Judge Thomas Cooley in 1888 – The Law of Torts 29 (2d ed. 1888) – ‘the right to be left alone’.

So where does this lead to in terms of ediscovery, which is also here to stay whether cloud or no cloud.

One term that comes to mind is disruption as in disruptive technology with the intended consequences and (perceived) benefits.

Cloud computing is disruptive technology/computing for ediscovery at many levels as it touches on several areas where ediscovery is weak (in terms of uncertainty or complexity in data access and processing). Similar to the concept of ‘core’, ‘control’ and ‘trust’ are meaningless in disruptive technology. Meaningless in the sense that one invariably (even with contractual agreements in place) loses control of data (in the cloud). The issue with trust is – how can we trust cloud providers if we loses control of data? Control of data and issues of trust are interlock or meshed up as seen in the measures to deal with data protection and privacy rights. The emphasis on ‘protect’ data (as in data protection rather than ‘control’ ) seems to have lost its lustre in the attempt to address privacy of individual in the non physical data world.

So it is back to ‘handling of data’ which is essentially what we do when we do ediscovery. We ‘handle’ – as this cover all aspects of accessing or processing – as it is human that handle the data not computer.If this is not the case, why do we have ediscovery rules (CPR) that has description of ‘how to do…’ . Like all changes in rules/law, there will be disruption initially. So it is safe to say, changes in the data regime will disrupt the ediscovery rules or more accurately further disrupt the handling of data.

Can we define data in terms of services? It’s like defining personal and sensitive data (or secret data/info) as services for cloud computing. Maybe we are getting there in terms of 4 letters, as data is 4 letters too.

In the ediscovery world, these two ‘B something’ not only add extra vocabulary but also highlighted that data is ‘Big-ish to the petra super server level’ and also ‘small-ish to the device level’.

Where do we start?

When I am asleep, I guess I have nothing to do with technology unless I am in a technological related dream. This will probably be the end of my spirited being.

Here is an interesting question (or a dream question?) raised by someone at the Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development (sociotech) Group. I see nothing wrong in raising the question in my blog here. Any objections and concerns, please post here or contact cher at iedisc.com

Gosh! has technology got me to be so so cautious?!

The question coming from the sociotech group:

What do we really mean by technology?

This question sound similar to several questions raised by law/policy makers during an ediscovery conference I attended in 2009 in Barcelona.

Substitute the word ‘technology’ with ‘processing’ or ‘privacy’ or ‘consent’ (as in data protection), we end up with more dreamy questions with little common understanding or agreement, especially when discussing on ‘what are the real issues with cross border ediscovery?’.

The questions were based on this statement (or an opinion?):

There is no legal basis (or justification) for ‘processing’ which includes transferring, viewing, accessing etc, of data in ediscovery across the Atlantic (i.e. the Europe & US divide). What? No viewing, i.e. I can’t even open-view the file/data !

I guess the answers were not in the questions being raised, as the only answer that the policy makers were seeking to get assurance is: ‘how safe is my (personal) data’?

So, ‘What do we really mean by technology?’

My dreamy reply: ‘technology’ is a beast and also a non beast, a thing and also a thingy.

What is your view(s)?

Does this mean that Cloud Computing is now passé?

To quote Paknad in the news at law.com: “There’s no easy button, there’s just complex and more complex buttons.”

Complex buttons leading to more sore fingers and eyes ( even with predictive coding! ).

Please note that I have not included the trademark symbol in this blog & in the blog’s title as I am not referring to Recommind’s patented  ‘predictive coding’.

Embracing technology, including predictive coding, is ultimately a game-changing  ‘war’ (Predictive Coding war breaks out in US ediscovery sector? ).

Let’s hope more predictive coding technology will be deployed for cost cutting the ediscovery costs and not be locked in competition mode.