I want to know what important Email scandals have affected important people?

Ex: Polticians, Executives, CEO's, important people in the bussiness world ect...

I want to know what important Email scandals have affected important people?
When Bill Gates of Microsoft was testifying in the federal anti-trust case, he said he didn't know about something - had never heard of it.





Using a legal right called "discovery", the feds went to Microsoft's corporate offices and said they wanted access to their computer network - including the files containing old e-mails. They then executed a "find"command on that topic and found where Gates had received a email on that topic and had responded to it. In court, his response to this news was "I receive so many emails how would I remember them all?"





Back in the 1980's when Gates and Microsoft were fighting IBM over the microcomputer operating system, people often referred to Microsoft %26amp; Gates as if they were heros from Star Wars and fighting the evil empire (IBM). But when Gates testified in court, he looked very stupid for not only saying he didn't know about the topic - but also for not knowing the feds would search thru all of his emails.





I used to work for a very large state government agency in the role of a computer security officer (keep the data %26amp; network safe). Different articles I was reading said the biggest liability to a business from e-mails, was the business managers did not realize the risks they were leaving themself open to. For example, if something was printed on a letter which had the company letterhead on it and it was mailed out, people would be very careful with what they said. And if atttorneys or the federal governement sent someone in to do discovery, well let them - could they look at every copy of every letter by hand? No way. They would be unable to pay the cost of having people search thru more than 10% (? a guess) of the letters written.





But in e-mails, people often talk like they are at a bar. Not only do they say things that they would not want as part of the permanent record, but they also often use derogratory terms when referring to people they do not like. To make matters worse, when these emails are sent there is legal proof of who saw the email and who wrote it. Prior to emails, a business manager could just say "I didn't see the letter."





Another issue - when is the email deleted? Say a friend sends you a email, copies your teacher, and bad mouths someone at school - using a negative, politically incorrect term. You read it and delete it. The person who sent it to you deletes it. Is it gone? Is there any record of that email? It all depends on how the computers were connected.





Really what happened was your friend sent the email from their computer. It went to the server at their network - which then copied the email and sent it to your network's server and the network server used by your teacher. Both servers kept a copy of the emails before they sent them to you and your teacher. How long this copy is kept - depends on the retention period defined by the network engineer. (The federal government has an agreement with all Internet service providers to keep a copy of all emails for a minimum period of time so federal agents and local police investigators may have access to them. )





Many businesses, for business recovery purposes - automatically make copies of all emails sent over their network - and then sends those copies to an underground vault in case something destroys the building where the main computer is located. This is so they can use those copies to rebuild the computer network and its files.





Another problem is your teacher - having seen the "bad words" your friend wrote, the teacher may be legally responsible for reporting the email to authorities. There is now legal proof that the teacher saw it - and the date %26amp; time they saw it.





I remember one case cited in one of the articles was a woman who was suing her former employer for sexual harrassment coming from the company's CEO. The CEO said he didn't do anything. Her attorneys found a email from the CEO to the head of personnel which said "fire the big-t*t b****ch". Shown this evidence, the company paid the woman to settle the lawsuit and then fired the CEO (for being stupid enough to put it in writing?) .





It has gotten to the point, that many companies when provided with a court order which requires them to allow discovers to access their network, will just settle the case. The expense of providing backup copies of all those files (they are legally liable if they accidently leave any copies out of the info provided to the discovers) is starting to hurt the companies being sued. Companies have started asking the courts and legislatures to limit the amount of expense or the length of time for which they must provide files to a reasonable limit. Problem is, they cannot agree on what a reasonable limit is (60 days, 1 year)?
Reply:Don't have the article anymore. They are at least 2-3 years old.





There is an attorney in CA that writes a weekly article on issues related to computers. If I can find one of his emails (small chance), I'll send it to you. Report Abuse