From Timothy J. Stevens
The problem of imprudent e-mails returning to haunt us
(28 October, p 18) is
sure to grow as we increasingly use computers as typewriters and filing cabinets
for everything we write, both in our work and in our private lives.
There’s an aspect of information storage that Duncan Graham-Rowe overlooked,
but which will be of interest to anyone concerned about the resurrection of
supposedly deleted information. In most modern workplaces, the computers are
connected to central resources by a network. Typical of such a central resource
is a database that contains everybody’s e-mail. All such databases are copied
regularly, usually daily, to tape or other media and stored somewhere safe. The
database can be restored in the event of any failure that would have otherwise
completely destroyed valuable data.
Back-up tapes are often stored for several months—and in some
organisations for up to a year. Recovering e-mail from a back-up database
doesn’t require particularly high-level skills or equipment. This applies to any
information stored on a computer network’s central file stores. When you perform
a delete, you may remove a piece of information from its current storage but
it’s still there on all the copies!
My advice is: be careful.
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