IT Projects: Expert Witness, CIO, In-House Counsel & Litigation Forum

The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism

How about someone taking on the re-telling of Deep Throat's story, now that there are people telling more of the facts, not just feeding the grist mill of sensationalized journalism?  Any ideas about candidates who could do the story justice?  I vote for Oliver Stone to put it on film!  And for Adam Sandler and Will Farrel for the roles of Woodward and Bernstein. 

Marlene

Previously posted December 22, 2008

By George Friedman

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20081222_death_deep_throat_and_crisis_journalism

Mark Felt died last week at the age of 95. For those who don’t recognize that name, Felt was the “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame.  It was Felt who provided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post with a flow of leaks about what had happened, how it happened and where to look for further corroboration on the break-in, the cover-up, and the financing of wrongdoing in the Nixon administration. Woodward and Bernstein’s exposé of Watergate has been seen as a high point of journalism, and their unwillingness to reveal Felt’s identity until he revealed it himself three years ago has been seen as symbolic of the moral rectitude demanded of journalists.

In reality, the revelation of who Felt was raised serious questions about the accomplishments of Woodward and Bernstein, the actual price we all pay for journalistic ethics, and how for many years we did not know a critical dimension of the Watergate crisis. At a time when newspapers are in financial crisis and journalism is facing serious existential issues, Watergate always has been held up as a symbol of what journalism means for a democracy, revealing truths that others were unwilling to uncover and grapple with. There is truth to this vision of journalism, but there is also a deep ambiguity, all built around Felt’s role. This is therefore not an excursion into ancient history, but a consideration of two things. The first is how journalists become tools of various factions in political disputes. The second is the relationship between security and intelligence organizations and governments in a Democratic society.

Will Tim Cook be the next Steve Jobs?

It would appear that Steve Jobs is very comfortable with bringing Tim Cook even further into the fray by having him appear along side him at important meetings and conferences. Interestingly enough, the negative response in the Fortune article about Tim Cook is from someone who was only identified as "...a Silicon Valley investor who travels in the Apple orbit..." .  Well, that could be one of any number of sycophants, wannabes and hangers-on, couldn't it?  Anonymous remarks carry as much weight as a wet Kleenex.  So - anyone  have any suggestions about any other candidates that would be a good choices to "shadow" Jobs?  Do I hear any votes for Jerry Yang?            Marlene

Previously appeared on November 10, 2008
Posted by Sam Diaz,a senior editor at ZDNet

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=10762&tag=nl.e019

Last month, after a press event at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, I made an off-the-cuff observation about the future leadership of the company. In short, I commented on how Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, who took a portion of stage time from Jobs to talk about new notebooks, was wearing blue jeans and a black shirt - Jobs’ signature outfit. Granted, a wardrobe does not make anyone worthy of a CEO title. But, given concerns this year about Jobs’ health, it suddenly felt like Cook - who filled in as CEO for two months in 2004 while Jobs recovered from pancreatic cancer surgery - could be the successor when and if Jobs no longer carries the big title.

 Now , Fortune magazine has published a pretty lengthy piece, called “The genius behind Steve,” which looks at Cook - as well as a couple of other execs - who could be positioned to take the reins. (Techmeme) It’s a good read that offers a deeper look into Cook as an executive and a human being. Consider these excerpts from Fortune:

Jobs has seen to it that Cook is getting public exposure, especially on Wall Street. He is a fixture on Apple’s quarterly earnings calls, and he speaks at select investment conferences. “Operationally, when you think about what they’ve done - a massive retail-stores ramp, an expanded sales-channel presence, delivering new products without glitches, and managing huge seasonality - all speak to a company that is exceedingly well run,” says (Toni) Sacconaghi, the Sanford Bernstein analyst, referring almost wholly to aspects of the company that Cook oversees.

10 tech leaders who could become Obama’s CTO

Previously appeared on November 10th, 2008 posted by Jason Hiner http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=850&tag=nl.e019

As a presidential candidate, part of Barack Obama’s technology policy platform included hiring the U.S. government’s first chief technology officer (CTO). If Obama follows through on this, who is likely to get the job? Here are 10 top candidates.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama used technology to organize, communicate, and raise funds in innovative ways that gave him an advantage over opponents in both the primaries and the general election. It’s clear that Obama views tech as a powerful catalyst, and with the U.S. facing an unprecedented array of economic challenges, Obama will need to use technology to drive efficiency and institutional transformation.

A part of his policy platform, Obama has stated that he plans to hire the nation’s first chief technology officer (CTO) to play quarterback in driving these changes. A CTO is typically an organization’s top engineer and focuses on outward-facing technologies (see What’s the difference between CIO and CTO) but based on Obama’s policy statements he wants to use the national CTO position to:

• Build a 21st centrury technology infrastructure

• Unite and lead the CIOs and CTOs of various federal agencies

• Architect innovative tech solutions to help solve big problems.  

As a result, Obama is going to need a visionary tech leader who can rally both technologists and standard Washngton bureacrats around a common purpose. It also wouldn’t hurt to bring in a big name — someone who already has a strong reputation that will translate into political capital.

Here are top 10 candidates.

10. Shai Agassi

This former technology head of SAP has the business experience and the interest in larger societal issues to do well as America ’s CTO. However, he’s recently founded his own company,Better Place, to create an entirely new business model and power system to run the electric cars of the future. Because of his passion for that project, it’s doubtful he would want the U.S. CTO gig.

State Department, VA disclose two new data breaches

Database security is non-existent, stolen computers, breach of information files of high-profile citizens, personal details of veterans inadvertently included with public information on federal Web site that allows the public to search for details of government contracts and spending... and on and on it goes.  Who is watching the supposed "Watchdogs”?     Anybody have any good suggestions to pass on to help close up all the gaps and leaks?                     Marlene

Originally appeared in Computerworld on 2008-11-03 posted by Jaikumar Vijayan

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=IT+in+Government&articleId=9118959&taxonomyId=69&pageNumber=1

One affects passport applicants, the other, VA patients

November 3, 2008 (Computerworld) Two federal agencies that have already drawn attention this year for data security breaches are back in the spotlight again -- for the same reason.

One of them is the U.S. Dept. of State,  which last week disclosed that it had notified close to 400 individuals that the data they had submitted with their passport applications had been stolen in a database intrusion.

And last Saturday, the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) said that one of its medical centers in Oregon had accidentally posted personal data on about 1,600 patients on its public Web site.

The breach at the State Department occurred in March at around the same time the agency disclosed that some of its contractors had illegally snooped on passport records  belonging to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other high-profile citizens, according to a spokeswoman.

That disclosure triggered a review of the security controls protecting the State Department's Passport Information Electronic Records System (PIERS), which contains records on 192 million passports for 127 million people. An Inspector General's report was released in July and identified "many control weaknesses" -- including a general lack of policies, procedures and training for protecting passport data at the State Department. The report noted that there were about 20,500 users with active PIERS accounts as of May, with about 12,200 of them being employees or contractors at the department.

According to a State Department spokeswoman, 383 records were illegally accessed by a State Department employee. That worker has since been terminated, the spokeswoman said. All of those who were affected by the incident have been notified by the department and have been offered one year's worth of free credit monitoring. The notifications were sent out in two batches, with the first set going out on July 10 and the second on Oct. 6.

Wicked-cool political Web sites

Originally appeared in Computerworld on 2008-10-29 By Dan Tynan  

(http://blogs.computerworld.com) 

I can't eat, I can't sleep, and I can't seem to pull myself away from the Net. Election time must be near.

While obsessing over politics, I found some wicked-cool sites I had to share with my faithful readers.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote here that YouTube has forever changed our electoral politics]. (I also did a podcast on this topic with Geekazine's Jeff Powers earlier this week. If you've got half an hour to kill, check it out.)

At the techPresident blog, Micah Sifry has put dollars and sense on YouTube's value.  First he asked YouTube metrics company TubeMogul  to calculate how much time YouTubers have spent watching each campaign's videos (not including those submitted by partisans and jokesters on either side). The answer: Obama wins by a huge margin.

Writes Sifry: "The total in absolute time (views * video length):
Obama 14,548,809.05 hours; McCain 488,093.01 hours."

Then Sifry asked political guru Joe Trippi how much Obama's YouTube hours would be worth in actual dollars, using typical TV ad spending as a measure. The answer? A whopping $46 million.

The value of McCain's YouTubing? About $1.5 million. So Obama has gotten about 30 times as much free air time on the Web as his rival. Tells you a lot, don't it?

Tribune blames Googlebot for United Air Lines stock crash

This fiasco seems to involve a very big cast - and lots of finger-pointing.  According to the Sept 10, 2008 article in the Corporate News section of the Wall Street Journal, "...the damage was exacerbated by the growing use on Wall Street of automated programs that trigger stock trades without any human action...". 

Guess the Googlebot is not paying any attention to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, as quoted in I, Robot. Plummeting stock prices as a result of Googlebot’s error certainly counts in my book as breaking the Zeroth Law,from Robots and Empire: A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.      Anybody out there with UAL stock?               Marlene  

 

Google concedes it misclassified an old story as breaking news

Sumner Lemon and James Niccolai

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Networking+and+Internet&articleId=9114462&taxonomyId=16

September 11, 2008 (IDG News Service) Google Inc. is to blame for publishing a 6-year-old news story that caused the stock of UAL, the parent company of United Air Lines Inc., to drop sharply on Monday, Tribune Co. said in a statement.

The problem started when Googlebot, the software program that Google News uses to index news sites, mistook one of the most popular stories on the Web site of the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,for breaking news. The story, "United Airlines Files for Bankruptcy," was then posted on Google News as a new story, even though the original news story was published on Dec. 10, 2002.

"Google provided a link to the old story on Google News and dated it September 6, 2008. Google's dating the story on Google News made it appear current to Google News users," Tribune said in a statement.

The appearance of the bankruptcy story on Google News was blamed for a steep drop in UAL's stock price, leading the airline to issue a clarification.

Advertiser Group Objects to Google-Yahoo Tie Up

Well, it will be interesting to see what other entities will be jumping on the bandwagon to voice either approval or disapproval of this proposed Google partnership/venture.  Does affiliation with Google in this kind of deal really make more sense for Yahoo than the Microsoft bid they refused earlier this year?  Any thoughts and comments from all of you out there?      Marlene

By Reuters  2008-09-08 http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Search/Advertiser-Group-Objects-to-GoogleYahoo-Tie-Up/

The Association of National Advertisers sent a letter objecting to the proposed Internet search advertising partnership between Yahoo and Google to government regulators reviewing the deal, the group said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Association of National Advertisers sent a letter objecting to the proposed Internet search advertising partnership between Yahoo Inc and Google Inc to government regulators reviewing the deal, the group said on Sunday.

U.S.The letter to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett, noted that "a Google-Yahoo partnership will control 90 percent of search advertising inventory," the ANA, which represents major U.S.advertisers, said in a statement.

The partnership "will likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search advertising," the statement said.

Barnett could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

Judge Makes Lawyers Pay for Frivolity

This is a pretty amazing story!!  What do you think?? Justice? Travesty? Something else??  We would love to hear from you!!  Warren

With the verdict overturned, two attorneys must pay the others' fees.

By Mike McPhee, The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 02/25/2008 02:53:25 AM MST

A federal judge recently got so infuriated by the conduct of two highly regarded trial attorneys that he overturned a jury's $51 million verdict, then ordered the lawyers to pay the fees and costs of the opposing lawyers, a sum that could total several million dollars.

U.S. District Senior Judge Richard P. Matsch sanctioned attorneys Terrance McMahon and Vera Elson of the firm McDermott, Will and Emery, of Chicago and San Francisco, for "cavalier and abusive" misconduct and for having a "what can I get away with?" attitude during a 13-day patent infringement trial in Denver.

He ruled that the entire trial was "frivolous" and the case filed solely to stifle competition rather than to protect a patent.

Neither McMahon nor Elson returned phone calls. But their firm defended them by stating it "believes in vigorous and ethical advocacy on behalf of our clients. While we respect Judge Matsch, we disagree with the conclusions of the opinion and believe that it will be reversed on appeal."

FW: Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election

With Senator Obama already having made his acceptance speech and Senator McCain set to do so next week, news coverage and national attention with turn to those all important Demographics targeted by each candidate. With all of today's technology, it's getting harder and not easier as more and more demographic groups are added to the mix.  I hope that the following youtube.com news clip will "clarify things" for you.   Can you add a few demographics for IT professionals, CIOs, and attorneys??

Have fun with this great satire!!  Warren

Originally posted on Friday August 29, 2008 at:                                                         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uql1avoyizc

IT careers in the 'cloud'

 

Time to retool again!  In today's ever changing IT world new skills are critical.  But where should you spend your time and hard-earned dollars?  In the 'Cloud'? Boning up on the hosted ERP services of the largest vendors?   How to write new algorithms for 'targeted internet ad marketing'?  How to improve your testing results?  How to make your software more successful?   Why don't you drop us a line with your experience and  recommendations as to where, and why, you will focus your on-going IT learning and education efforts.  Warren
 

By Thomas Hoffman, Aug 4, 2008 This article appeared in Computerworld's print edition. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=322132&source=NLT_CAR&nlid=5

IT organizations that shift a good part of their IT infrastructure activities to hosted service providers over the next decade (see "Is Google your next data center?") will likely see profound changes in the makeup and skills of their remaining IT staffers.

"There's a limited number of resources in IT," notes John Dutra, CTO of Sun IT, a division of Sun Microsystems. "Wouldn't I want to focus them on the most strategic areas possible?"

Gmail outage the latest cloud stumble; Where’s the offline synching?

 

Do you have your head in the Cloud?  Or should you be getting your head in the Cloud?  Like all waves or implementations of new technologies, there are +s and -s to jumping into the cloud without first knowing how it will affect your business, operations and goals. I invite you to share your lessons learned -- either the easy way or the hard way --  so our readers can stand upon what you have learned and not make the same mistakes.  Thank you in advance.   

Warren

First Posted by Larry Dignan, August 12th, 2008 on http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9646

Google’s Gmail outage on Monday was the latest stumble for nascent cloud computing services, which are becoming the lifeblood for small businesses and startups. The Gmail outage–along with Amazon’s stumbles of late–raises a few key questions: Where’s the offline synchronization capability? Can we depend solely on the Web? Is Microsoft’s software and services mantra the best path forward?

Those questions don’t have easy answers at the moment. But one thing is clear: If you’re depending on these Web-based applications you need a backup plan. To wit:

• Google said in a blog post that Gmail was down “a couple hours” due to “a temporary outage in our contacts system that was preventing Gmail from loading properly.” Obviously, the Gmail outage (Techmeme) impacted Google Apps customers.
• MobileMe is becoming a long-running nightmare for customers and Apple CEO Steve Jobs has admitted that the device synchronization effort has been a disappointment.
• Amazon’s S3 storage service has had its share of problems and outright outages, but the company has improved its transparency when problems occur.

The Draft Expert Report—Caught In The Tug of War Between Full Disclosure and The Work Product Doctrine

Below is an interesting piece taken from the articles posted on  http://www.hgexperts.com/article.asp?id=4778.  I have found http://www.hgexperts.com/ in general to be a well researched and reliable source of information in the past?  This article covers important material. Have any of our readers hsd to test this or some other theory in their court cases? please tell us what happened and the result.   Thanks.   Warren

There is a split in authority in the federal courts regarding the discoverability of attorney work product provided by counsel to his or her expert and in particular, the discoverability of draft expert reports. Most jurisdictions have ruled that the 1993 amendment to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure makes it clear that any materials provided by counsel to a testifying expert is discoverable, including information contained in draft reports.

INTRODUCTION
The retention of an expert, the formation of his or her expert opinion, and the creation of his or her expert report are all part of an overall process that should be carefully planned and monitored. In this overall process, a particularly important issue is the treatment of draft expert reports. Often, these reports contain indications of core attorney work product. Core attorney work product may include the legal counsel’s legal strategies, mental impressions, and case conclusions.

By James J. O’Sullivan, J.D., CPA, and Richard T. Cordano, Esq.
Provided by Willamette Management Associates

Working With an Expert Witness: The Seven Deadly Sins

This post presents Gabrielle Bonne's, Law.com article from April 12, 2006, on what lawyers do (or shouldn't do) to get the most and bests from their expert witnesses.

I just finished presenting two seminars on this topic to ACCA, along with Steve Brower, Esq., a Superior Court Judge, a Federal Court Judge, and an Appellate Court litigator. I'll post my thoughts/notes from this important seminar in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, what do you think of Gabrielle's checklist?  Have you ever been asked to break some of your own ethical rules as an expert? What did you do?  What happens if the relationship starts off well, but then the attorney begins to practice some of these "Sins" -- What do/did you do then?

"So, I'd really like it if I could say this ..."

If you've just said that to your expert witness, you've just made his blood boil. And that's probably not going to be very good for your case. As engineer Steven Murray, Ph.D., of Exponent Failure Analysis Associates in Menlo Park, Calif., says, "Our job is not to support a lawyer's theory, it's to find out the technical truth."

Working on a case can be like a juggling act -- you've got your client, the other side, the other side's attorney(s), your witnesses, your expert witnesses, the other side's witnesses and experts. That's a lot of balls in the air. But you should never lose sight of your expert witnesses -- they can make or break your case. Commit too many of the Seven Deadly Sins and you can sabotage your chances of getting the best results.

Facebook sues ‘knock-off’ German site

By Kevin Allison in San Francisco Published: July 19 2008 00:30

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8cd4ebbe-551f-11dd-ae9c-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

Facebook on Friday filed an intellectual property lawsuit against a German company that it has accused of running a “knock-off” of the social networking website.

In a complaint filed in a California court, Facebook accused StudiVZ - a German company that claims 10m users and calls itself “the most successful social network in Germany, Austria and Switzerland” - of “copying the look, feel, features and services” of the Facebook site.

The lawsuit comes several months after Facebook, which claims more than 80m active users, launched a German language version of its own website. That site has since struggled to gain traction among German users, according to one person close to the company.

In its complaint, Facebook accused StudiVZ of copying entire portions of the site’s design, including features such as Facebook’s distinctive “wall”, which allows users to leave messages on each other’s profile pages.

American Airlines settles trademark suit with Google

Thursday, July 17, 2008  Dallas Business Journal   http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2008/07/14/daily45.html

American Airlines Inc. and Google Inc. have settled a trademark-infringment lawsuit by the carrier against the search engine.

Terms of the dismissal weren’t disclosed in court records.

In the judgment issued Thursday, U.S. District District Court Judge John McBryde said Fort Worth-based American will “recover nothing” from Google (NYSE: GOOG), which is based in California. American Airlines is the main subsidiary of AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR).

Ballmer's Biggest Flop to Date!

Well??  Agree? Disagree? What do you think??   Let us know!    Warren

June 16, 2008 - 11:30 A.M. from:

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/3295272/150510368/120372/2/

by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols Cyber Cynic

No, I'm not going to say Vista. I see Vista as an organizational failure. Ballmer gets his share of the blame, but there's plenty of blame to go around. Now, Microhoo, the failed attempt to buy out Yahoo -- that heaping pile lands directly on Ballmer's doorstep.

Let me walk you through it. First, as we all know, Microsoft has been obsessed by Google. Ballmer is convinced that Google is The Enemy.

I've never quite understood this. Yes, in general terms, Google is the one technology company that Microsoft hasn't been able to beat into the ground. So what? Microsoft makes its billions from selling software. Google makes it mint from online advertising and the search engine that powers it.

Certainly, as the years have rolled by, Microsoft has tried to storm into Google's search stronghold. They've failed. It won't be the first or last time that Microsoft moved out of its comfort zone and into the twilight zone.

Google, in its turn, has advanced into Microsoft territory with Google Apps. That's a more serious threat. I think online office suites will never completely break office suites that live on PCs. After all do you really want your important report's very creation to depend entirely on your Starbucks Wi-Fi connection? I don't. Google Apps is no Microsoft Office killer.

Reasonable Suspicion not Required for Laptop Search at Int'l Airport

First it was your shoes; then your cosmetics; not it's your LAPTOP!  What's next?    Warren

From: MSBA Computer and Technology Law Section: The Official Blog of the Minnesota State Bar Association's Computer and Technology Law Section. http://mntech.typepad.com/msba/ 5/23/08

Generally, border search agents are given wide lattitude to conduct searches relative the reasonableness of suspicion¹ and, which provides an exception to the warrant requirement.² 

Some time ago, I posted a story concerning a border exception to the warrant requirement, where a border agent inspected a laptop and discovered contraband (click here).  From the Ninth Circuit, U.S. v. Arnold, we have a similar underlying fact situation, except that the question before the court concerns the reasonableness of the intrusion