 | | April 2013 Message From Lee Neubecker |
The first three months of 2013 have brought a flurry of activity from organizations and law firms requiring digital forensics and ESI processing. After year-end financial incentives had been deposited, employees began jumping ship to competing firms or started firms of their own. Forensicon staff successfully investigated and reported on multiple instances of trade secret misappropriation which were used to support securing Temporary Restraining Orders (TRO) or other legal remedies. One case focused on complex database schemas copied and used in a competitor's software. Forensicon was able to successfully articulate and demonstrate the identical aspects of the two different sources which resulted in a favorable settlement for our client.
Social media continues to grow not only in users but also as an outlet for stealing trade secrets or proprietary information. Services like Dropbox©, Google Drive©, FileAnywhere©, and others are great collaborative tools, but they also serve as an easy means to copy large amounts of information in a short amount of time. Once the information is uploaded, it can be accessed by anyone with the login credentials on any computer in the world. We have tools which allow us to detect and attempt to identify the information that has been misappropriated.
If you know a business or entity struggling with online identity theft, battling a competitor over proprietary or copyrighted information posted online, or investigating a recently departed employee, please feel free to contact me 888-427-5667 x121. The greatest honor anyone can give us is when they refer us to a colleague or call us for a follow-on engagement. I thank you for your past and future consideration.
Happy Spring!
Sincerely yours,
Lee Neubecker
President
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Trade Secrets Clarification Act of 2012 Updates |
Congress Makes Progress Protecting IP Rights
Congress and President Obama honored their commitment to protecting the intellectual property rights of U.S. businesses and entrepreneurs by passing two new laws that are designed to combat trade secret theft and misuse: the Foreign and Economic Espionage Penalty Enhancement Act of 2012 and the Theft of Trade Secrets Clarification Act of 2012. These laws will help businesses and entrepreneurs protect their most valuable assets-their intellectual property-and gives federal prosecutors more authority to investigate and enforce alleged violations. Read More |
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| Social Media the Link that Binds! |
How to Connect the Dots of Social MediaWith present day technology, social media is the link that ties people together. People will post anything on their social media site because they control who can see what. However, when you enter the court of law, that "private material" is now discoverable. Courts have established that social media information and posts are considered discoverable as long as the material is relevant. Social media discovery is now becoming more relevant with Intellectual Property litigation. A Facebook© friend, a LinkedIn© connection, a Twitter© follower are all evidence of a business connection, possible leak of information or a competitor snooping around.
But knowing the evidence is present and preserving it are two different concepts. The biggest problem in discovery of social media is spoliation. Social media providers rarely respond to third party subpoenas claiming protection under the Stored Communications Act ("SCA"). However the SCA only applies to a third party subpoena, not requests from the court or counsel for a person's information during discovery. That being said, attorneys need to utilize retrieving as much information as possible as early as possible. Deleted and inactive accounts are still discoverable and in most cases recoverable. Forensicon utilizes tools which can preserve data from social networking communications, instant messenger chat histories, popular web-mail applications, web browsing history, peer-to-peer sites and online communications giving our client the strategical edge.
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Crain's Interviews Lee Neubecker on Jeep's Hacked Twitter Account
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| Lee Neubecker was recently quoted in Crain's Automotive News on password security related to Jeep's Twitter account being hacked. "To avoid being the next victims, companies should make sure they don't use the same password across multiple accounts, and should rotate passwords periodically," said Lee Neubecker. Read More |
Illinois Trade Secrets Act - When Employees Steal Electronic Data |
Illinois Makes Progress Regarding IP Theft
With the new year well underway and an economy that is showing signs of improvement, many people are beginning to resume jumping ship from their existing employer to go to work for a competitor or to start their own firm. Employers and employees in Illinois need to be mind ful that the State of Illinois takes trade secret theft incidents involving digital data seriously. Employers need to make sure they have taken the necessary steps to protect their information, otherwise efforts to prove the theft of ESI with the use of computer forensics can fail to achieve results in the courts, even when transfer of ESI outside the company is proven beyond all reasonable doubts. Read More
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| There are Solutions.....How Forensicon Can Help |
Discovery Protocols and Motions
Forensicon offers legal discovery consulting services to assist attorneys and their clients with addressing the technical challenges associated with seeking discovery documents, email and relevant data during the course of litigation. Forensicon staff are experienced in working with attorneys on complicated litigation across the financial, consulting, and software industries as well as other sectors to help clients obtain the information they seek to help establish the merits of their case in a court of law. Read More
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Cell Phone Forensics
Cell phones and PDAs can prove to be valuable sources of information in many types of investigations. Forensicon performs cell phone and PDA data acquisition on a flat rate basis. Where a cell phone or PDA is listed as a supported model, Forensicon is often able to copy all of the data off the device for further review or analysis in a few hours time. Read More
Forensicon specializes in performing time-based analysis of electronically stored metadata. Our experience evaluating and analyzing time-based metadata enables us to quickly correlate disparate information in order to find notable dates and times of interest relating to spoliation, misappropriation, and other irregular computer usage and activities.
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Forensicon, Inc. Copyright © 2013. All Rights Reserved.
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