Tag Archives: Twitter

September 27, 2016 · 10:02 AM

LTN: Social Media Evidence Even More Important than email and “Every Litigator” Needs to Address It

legaltech-news-thumbBrent Burney, a top eDiscovery tech writer of Legaltech News, recently penned a detailed product review of X1 Social Discovery after his extensive testing of the software. (Social Media: A Different Type of E-Discovery Collection, Legaltech News, September 2016). The verdict on X1 Social Discovery is glowing, but more on that in bit. Burney also provides very remarkable general commentary on how social media and other web-based evidence is essential for every litigation matter, noting that “email does not hold a flicker of a candle to what people post, state, admit and display in social media.” In emphasizing the critical importance of social media and other web-based evidence, Burney notes that addressing this evidentiary treasure trove is essential for all types and sizes of litigation matters.

Consistent to that point, there is a clear dramatic increase in legal and compliance cases involving social media evidence. Top global law firm Gibson Dunn recently reported that “the use of social media continues to proliferate in business and social contexts, and that its importance is increasing in litigation, the number of cases focusing on the discovery of social media continued to skyrocket.” Undoubtedly, this is  why Burney declares that “every litigator should include (X1 Social Discovery) in their technical tool belt,” and that X1 Social Discovery is “necessary for the smallest domestic issue all the way up to the largest civil litigation matter.” Burney bases his opinion on both the critical importance of social media evidence, and his verdict on the effectiveness of X1 Social Discovery, which he lauds as featuring an interface that “is impressive and logical” and providing “the ideal method” to address social media evidence for court purposes.

From a legal commentary standpoint, two relevant implications of the LTN article stand out. First, the article represents important peer review, publication and validation of X1 Social Discovery under the Daubert Standard, which includes those factors, among others, as a framework for judges to determine whether scientific or other technical evidence is admissible in federal court.

Secondly, this article reinforces the view of numerous legal experts and key Bar Association ethics opinions, asserting that a lawyer’s duty of competence requires addressing social media evidence. New Hampshire Bar Association’s oft cited ethics opinion states that lawyers “have a general duty to be aware of social media as a source of potentially useful information in litigation, to be competent to obtain that information directly or through an agent, and to know how to make effective use of that information in litigation.” The New York State Bar similarly weighed in noting that “A lawyer has a duty to understand the benefits and risks and ethical implications associated with social media, including its use as a … means to research and investigate matters.” And the America Bar Association recently published Comment [8] to Model Rule 1.1, which provides that a lawyer “should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”

The broader point in Burney’s article is that X1 Social Discovery is enabling technology that provides the requisite feasibility for law firms, consultants, and other practitioners to transition from just talking about social media discovery to establishing it as a standard practice.  With the right software, social media collections for eDiscovery matters and law enforcement investigations can be performed in a very scalable, efficient and highly accurate process. Instead of requiring hours to manually review and collect a public Facebook account, X1 Social Discovery can collect all the data in minutes into an instantly searchable and reviewable format.

So as with any form of digital investigation, feasibility (as well as professional competence) often depends on utilizing the right technology for the job.  As law firms, law enforcement, eDiscovery service providers and private investigators all work social discovery investigations into standard operating procedures, it is critical that best practices technology is incorporated to get the job done. This important LTN review is an emphatic punctuation of this necessity.

 

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April 27, 2015 · 10:35 AM

Judges Believe Social Media will Have Biggest Effect on eDiscovery Over the Next Two Years

The good folks at Exterro recently released a very interesting report titled “Federal Judges Survey, eDiscovery Best Practices and Trends.”  The title includes a link to download the report, which I highly recommend reading as it is good to know what the judges who rule on eDiscovery all the time are thinking.  Overall, the report calls for some necessary disruptive change in the practice of eDiscovery in order to demonstrate competency.  There are some excellent tips in the report on how eDiscovery professionals can improve and what kinds of trends we should be on the lookout for.

One finding stood out to me in particular – the Judges surveyed felt that social media would be the technology trend with the biggest effect on eDiscovery over the next two years.

Exterro Survey

As the report states, “Attorneys must be aware that all emerging technology platforms are just like email; if they hold relevant evidence you are accountable for preserving the data.”  At X1, we’ve known this for quite some time.  We’ve blogged about cases where the old way of doing social discovery – print screen – has been shown to lack authenticity standards and not meet the duty of competency that lawyers must meet.  To see the Judges recognize this as a critical trend rather than just a niche corner of the market validates what we have known for years.

It is no coincidence that X1’s Social Discovery product continues its rapid upward trajectory.  There is simply no other product on the market that offers a true investigative platform for this critical new data type.  Such a social media investigative platform will include:

  • Tight API connections to the major social media publishers like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. The API connection allows for the capture of unique metadata that each publisher adds to its data.
  • A web crawler and capture capability that creates a copy of the page to be stored for processing into a preservation repository.
  • The ability to keep data forensically sound. This requires calculating MD5 hash values of individual items upon capture and maintaining those values through export. The platform must keeps logs and reports of all actions on data. It also must be able to use metadata to establish chain of custody and authentication.

The challenge with social media – unlike email – is that much of the data resides outside the walls of an organization.  Collection of social media becomes a challenge. Companies cannot simply call Facebook or Twitter and request all of the information for various custodians.  It is possible to take screenshots of various web pages or social media sites, but as case law points out, screenshots are not necessarily admissible as evidence.  Plus, screenshots take a technical toll on eDiscovery – they can be difficult to index and may require OCR, which still may not be able to pull text out of the image.  That is where an investigative platform like X1 Social Discovery is so important to a competent eDiscovery practice.

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August 5, 2014 · 9:01 AM

Social Discovery: An Interview With Howard Williamson

This week’s blog is something new for X1 – a Q & A with Howard Williamson, the General Manager for X1’s market leading Social Discovery product.  Howard is an experienced digital forensics expert and began his career in law enforcement, which gives him a unique perspective on the practice of social discovery.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Howard this week on what is a very hot topic – social discovery.

Why Social Discovery?

Howard:  I remember back in the mid-1990’s there was a real feeling of excitement around digital forensics.  It was the cutting edge of the forensics field and the work was really fun.  Social media is now what digital forensics was in the mid to late 1990s – it’s the cutting edge of where investigation and intelligence is right now.  The work is fun because there are lots of challenges; the fun part is taking the practice from good to great.  That is what attracted me to the opportunity at X1 – because X1 Social Discovery can make the practice great because the product addresses the challenges of defensibly collecting a high volume, diverse data set like social media.

How does the law enforcement background complement this role?

Howard:  Ultimately, the goal of social discovery is to collect data in a manner that allows it to be used in criminal or civil litigation.  Knowing how that process works is critical.  The law enforcement background gives that experience of defensible collection across many different types of digital evidence.  And, on the criminal side of things, the standards of defensibility are quite high, so carrying that over to the civil side means that X1 will always meet high authenticity standards.  I bring that high bar from the digital forensics world to this brave new world of social media.

What’s new about this practice?
Howard:  The nice thing about now versus the mid-1990s is that we are now using purpose-built tools like X1 Social Discovery rather than co-opting system administration and network tools like we did in the early days of computer forensics.  That makes the Modern evidenceprocess more efficient and more complete.
Rather than using a sledgehammer to put a nail in, we are using a hammer.  The tool is built specifically for social discovery and therefore makes the practice more efficient.  Whereas in the early days of digital forensics, collection procedures where often made up on the fly, with Social Discovery, the approach is much more structured and systematic.  At X1, with our experience, we are certainly able to think and react on the fly to new challenges, but with a purpose-built tool, we can do so much more efficiently.  And, in the eDiscovery world, efficiency and defensibility are two very important things.

Are you seeing social discovery specialists pop up? 

Howard:  What we are seeing is that digital forensics professionals and intelligence professionals are implementing social discovery into their processes and procedures.  There are not “specialists” in social media; rather, the social discovery tool allows more people to collect this type of data as part of a broader job.  They are also doing things like mobile forensics and other digital forensics.  Thus, X1 Social Discovery has become an important tool in their toolkit.  The tool actually makes it easier to bring social media content into the collection because the professional doesn’t have to dive deep into things like mobile operating systems.  It becomes easier to be an expert in social collection because the product makes it simple to collect and analyze.

Do you think that Social discovery is a mainstream practice now?

Howard:  It absolutely is.  The evidence of that is our business.  X1 has nearly 500 paid install sites and nearly 4,000 end users conducting social discovery.  These users got ahead of the curve and have social media integrated into their processes.  The growth opportunity is still huge because it is inevitable that case law will force everyone to take social media more seriously, in the way that the Enron case put a spotlight on electronic discovery in general.  Law enforcement got the importance of social media evidence early on.  Even though a more typically cautious industry, police departments see that social media is a critical form of evidence and have built it into collection processes.  This is how most areas of forensics have evolved.   There is an attitude that, if it’s good enough for criminal law, it’s good enough for civil court.  That is part of what’s exciting for X1 – we have a great base of law enforcement customers putting the product through the paces.  X1 Social Discovery is truly battle-tested and no other solution works quite as well.  We are nicely positioned as the social discovery leader in a mainstream market with high growth potential.

What should we look for in the next year of social discovery?

Howard:  I would expect to see the big social networks continue to gain traction.  I don’t foresee a new behemoth social network to challenge the popularity of Facebook and Twitter.  From an app perspective, self-destructing messaging looks to remain popular as privacy becomes more of a concern.  Forensics will play a large role in determining whether those messages are truly destroyed or actually discoverable.

X1 will continue to build out connectors to more and more social networks and improve reporting and deliverables.  There will be more ability to analyze the data within the investigation platform.   What X1 wants to enable is people to do their jobs within a given workflow.  Some users will want to collect and review social media directly within X1, and the tools enables them to do that.  Others have examiners collect the data, but then move to a review tool where litigators can look at it.

Big thanks to Howard Williamson for sharing his time with us.  If you have questions about social discovery, please contact us at info@x1.com for more information.

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Catch Howard’s lecture at HTCIA’s Annual Conference, Tuesday, August 26, where he will cover Social Media Collection and Review >

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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June 10, 2014 · 8:43 AM

“Elephant in the Room” – Case Studies of Social Media in Civil and Criminal Cases

Editor’s Note: We are pleased to welcome a guest blogger Mark Lanterman, Chief Technology Officer of Computer Forensics Services, Inc, (CFS) a Minnesota-based eDiscovery and computer forensics services firm. CFS features an innovative and cutting-edge practice supporting social media investigations.

mark_lanterman
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Social media is now a very public extension of an individual’s life.  Its widespread appeal and ease of use has given rise to new digital profiles that share extensive and mostly publically available information. However, despite being a treasure trove of potentially relevant information, social media is often overlooked in litigation.

In my practice — involving matters performed on behalf of law firms and law enforcement agencies — social media is, more often than not, a crucial stone to upturn for key evidence, and in many cases proves to be the “smoking gun”.  In fact, social media evidence is relevant and important over 70 percent of the cases we handle. And thanks to the public nature of social media evidence and the automation and scalability of X1 Social Discovery, we are able to proactively collect social media evidence in our cases, which has been a game-changer in several instances.

For instance, I recently received a call from the local sheriff’s office regarding a series of threatening Twitter and Facebook posts being made against public figures.  The mentally ill man responsible for the posts included updates and photos from his visits to the pubic figures’ homes.  The up-to-the-minute captures we obtained with X1 Social Discovery gave law enforcement the opportunity to catch up with the suspect before he was able to elevate his threats and/or delete his threatening posts.  Furthermore, X1 Social Discovery’s collections are easily delivered to the necessary parties in a timely manner, which allowed law enforcement to charge the man with terroristic threats and stalking.

Social media is also extremely valuable for eDiscovery investigations in civil cases.  For example, in a recent intellectual property theft suit, I used X1 to collect the publicly available LinkedIn profile of a disgruntled employee, who left her company for a competitor.  The woman’s LinkedIn profile disclosed that she began her tenure with the competitor nearly three months before she officially quit.  Using the date provided, I was able to determine that same week she copied thousands of confidential electronic records to a USB thumb drive from her work-issued laptop.  The evidence collected by X1 Social Discovery proved to be extremely valuable, and when used in conjunction with other evidence, a settlement was reached in a matter of hours after the analysis results were produced.  In this way, social media provides important context to other aspects of discovery.

In fact, it is now a routine practice for us to proactively preserve social media evidence, even if not explicitly requested by our clients.  Earlier this year, I was working on a civil case and, immediately upon being retained, collected the opposing party’s public Facebook and Twitter profiles using X1 Social Discovery.  A few weeks later, I brought to the attention of my client the fact that this person’s Facebook and Twitter accounts had been deleted shortly after the Court had entered a preservation order.  Thankfully, we had collected these accounts ahead of time; which contained relevant information, including incriminating posts that weakened her case. The matter was settled within a week.

Often, lawyers are uncomfortable about social media collections given its newness and bad experiences when relying on screen captures. It’s true that social media collections can present unique challenges when best practices are not utilized. But as it is now essential to nearly all digital investigations, I am always sure to advise my clients about collecting it, something that would otherwise be very burdensome and would not scale without X1 Social Discovery.  With the ever-changing nature of computer forensic investigations and e-discovery, it is important for attorneys and investigators to keep an open mind, as well as stay current on social media’s growing capabilities, which are expanding goldmines for potentially relevant information.  Once litigation has started, it is important to preserve everything that could be deemed relevant.  With the ease of access afforded to users and the semi-volatile nature of social media data, X1 allows for an efficient and admissible collection method.

 

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April 16, 2014 · 11:59 AM

Social Discovery Requires An Investigative Platform

by Barry Murphy

Recent cases, such as the one John Patzakis blogged about last week and the case in Michigan where Facebook content led to the arrest of child-beaters, have put social discovery squarely in the spotlight.  While there are those in the industry that still think of social media as being a fringe element in the eDiscovery world, the evidence suggests otherwise.  The fact is that social media content is an integral part of business life.  eDJ Group research from last fall shows that 63% of eDJ’s survey respondents use external social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook for business purposes.

eDJ data on social media usage

Click on image to enlarge

In fact, usage of social media for business is growing and it will soon catch up to (and probably surpass) email.  We all know what happened with discovery of email – the inability to efficiently collect it practically created the eDiscovery industry.  Reinforcing the fact that social discovery has arrived are the sales numbers for X1’s social discovery product – which continue to grow exponentially – and word from service providers that they are doing Facebook collections thirty times per week.  I believe that social discovery is poised to become a big market in and of itself.

The challenge with social media – unlike email – is that much of the data resides outside the walls of an organization.  Collection of social media becomes a challenge.  Companies cannot simply call Facebook or Twitter and request all of the information for various custodians.  It is possible to take screenshots of various web pages or social media sits, but as John’s blog points out, screenshots are not necessarily admissible as evidence.  Plus, screenshots take a technical toll on eDiscovery – they can be difficult to index and may require OCR, which still may not be able to pull text out of the image.  Companies could write API connections to the social media publishers themselves, but that requires a ton of labor to not only build those connectors, but also to manage the almost weekly updates to the publishers’ APIs.  Instead, companies should look for an investigative platform.

A social media investigative platform will include:

  • Tight API connections to the major social media publishers like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.  The API connection allows for the capture of unique metadata that each publisher adds to its data.
  • A web crawler and capture capability that creates a copy of the page to be stored for processing into a preservation repository.
  • The ability to keep data forensically sound. This requires calculating MD5 hash values of individual items upon capture and maintaining those values through export. The platform must keep logs and reports of all actions on data.  It also must be able to use metadata to establish chain of custody and authentication.

One of the points eDJ Group makes in its “Collection of Preservation of Social Media” report is to “[p]lan for more and more social media.  While companies can focus near-term efforts on the major publishers (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter), over time there will be more and more sources of social media for companies to govern.  The number of users of other social networks like Google+ and Tumblr continues to increase.  More and more companies share video content via YouTube.  And, just imagine the rich evidence that a site like FourSquare (which allows users to check in with their geographic location) could provide.”  Social discovery is here to stay and the stakes are getting higher.  The time to act and build the capability is now, not a year from now when you are already behind the eight-ball – that will only create the same situation we created by getting behind the curve with email.

Learn more about X1 Social Discovery here >

 

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