Evidence: "Lawyers, not law makers, scare IT managers most"

Don't worry. This is actually a headline from an article on backing up and archiving data on vnunet.com. It leads with the improbable finding from a survey of some 500 business around the world that "legal archiving is the biggest concern" of systems managers and somehow mentions the cash-for-honours investigation.

The article quotes the V-P of a computer security consultancy:

"It is attorneys that are realising the IT threats first, then government. They have realised that 90 per cent of office communication is electronic and that this kind of evidence is crucial. It is emails on trial. Attorneys are much more aware of this than IT departments
and are using this in court."

The spokesman referred to a case where the trial judge directed a jury to assume that a major bank was hiding something because it had lost data accidentally. Pretty good grounds of appeal I should have thought.