Archiving101.com

Source: http://www.arma.org/news/enewsletters/index.cfm?ID=3449

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging that Google may be making deceptive claims about the security of documents stored in its Gmail and Google Docs services. The complaint cites an error that allowed users to access documents without proper permission. Google contends the error affected only users who had already shared documents and involved less than .5% of all documents held. EPIC also claims that, while Google promises secure data storage, the company’s terms of service note that it is not liable for harm. EPIC is urging the FTC to investigate.

Any of the SaaS vendors recently taken a look at their Terms of Service?

It looks like Cryoserver bit the dust again a little while ago .. its website hasn’t been updated in months.  Cryoserver went bankrupt about 2 years ago, but tried to make a fresh start.  What is not very known is that appliance software of Cryoserver is the same software that Trend Micro sells, but rebranded.

Competition is tough in the archiving market and you better have a good differentiating product to survive.

Remember this article that I wrote? It doesn’t seem that hackers need to try to get to your information when its in the all praised buzzword SaaS cloud. Techcrunch reports that even the almighty Google can mess up and had private documents shared without permissions.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/07/huge-google-privacy-blunder-shares-your-docs-without-permission/

There are a LOT of reasons why I don’t like Software As A Service (SaaS) for some mission critical applications. The biggest one is giving up control of your data! I don’t like having potentially sensitive client documents and work product in the hands of unknown parties. “Oh, but it’s Google, it’s safe!” Sure.

As the article above explains, even Google can sometimes mess up and compromise your documents. How about if it was a strategy memo for a client that ended up in the hands of opposing counsel? Potentially nasty? You betcha. Can you imagine the headlines when a hosted archive vendor was running both Merck and Pfizer and their information was freely shared amongst the users of the archives?

And do you know who has keys to your server room at your office? I’m sure you do - you can probably count those people on one hand; you may even eat lunch with them on a regular basis. Do you know who has the keys to Google’s server room? No. And you can say that about just about any online provider - you just don’t know who has access to those servers and that means you don’t know who has access to your documents.

That worries me. And if you handle confidential client work-product then it should worry you too.

So I’ve been on the road for a while now and was working on one of the conferences yesterday when a CIO of a large organization came by who wanted to know more about our product and how it stacked up to the competition a few booths down.

Out of courtesy I am withholding the name of the competition, but in this case they were giving away fancy pens.  After having spoken with said CIO for about 15-20 minutes he was interested in more information and wanted to put down some notes .. grabbed the pen from his pocket that he received earlier and the pen disintegrated … parts flying everywhere over the ground.  For the next 5 minutes he tried to assemble to pen again only to look at the logo a final time and tossing it with disgust in a trashcan.

What is interesting is that something simple like this could exlude the competitor from having any chance of moving further with this prospect.   Make sue the swag you give away at least is as reliable as your software …..

This week I’m attending both the MVP Summit and the Microsoft CIO Summit in Redmond, WA (a busy week juggling my normal job duties with a few conferences to work at).  At my employer we have several MVPs, who each are experts in their specific field.

Each year, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are invited to attend the MVP Global Summit at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in Seattle and at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and this year it is held from March 1 through 4. Invitations were also extended to Regional Directors (RDs) and allows for providing feedback to Microsoft and insight into product releases through private meetings with product groups.  I particlarly enjoy the MVP summit as the content generally goes beyond what you might see at other conferences, plus the interaction with notable experts in the messaging field is valuable.

Due to restrictions I can’t elaborate on what particarly is discussed at the Summit.