Deleted My Ass

[yella_dawg]

Commercial and government computer networks are archived on a regular basis, typically daily. Multiple copies of the archive are stored in physically different places to limit the damage from natural disasters, fires, etc. The archives are maintained in different increments (daily, monthly, annual) based on a backup strategy, but something like a monthly snapshot of the system is retained for years, if not permanently.

As messages move through the system, copies get made. Consider companies that monitor employee email for content. That isn't done on a unique message that appears, moves through the system, then vanishes. Copies end up in a variety of caches. It is the cache copy that is examined. Each of those caches is archived regularly.

Finally, the word "delete" is hard to define. In your home email account, delete may well mean that a message is erased. It might still be recovered through heroic efforts, but basically, it's gone. In a commercial or government setting, that kind of delete could be a problem. What if you delete a message from Tony Blair before you get a chance to respond? Touchy. Delete in commercial systems generally means "mark as read" and so it becomes invisible to anyone but a sysadmin who can make it magically reappear.

Deleted, as Karl defines it, if purest fantasy.

[C_U_L8R]

1. Subpoena Their Ass

oh this is getting better and better
Bush & Co are tripping over their own crookedness now

[Little Wing]

2. by people who want to keep them

It's amazing how people assume because organization A backs up data that organization B then MUST ALSO back up their data

[yella_dawg]

3. Organization "B"

in this case, is the White House that is required by law to back up. In spite of your superior knowledge of all things, you don't seem to understand that the physical structure of networks have little or nothing to do with the logical structure that you perceive onscreen.

Chances are, the White House network is maintained on a military base by some Spec 4 that actually does backup according to legally mandated policy. Rove probably doesn't even know where the servers are, much less have any control over who maintains them.

[Little Wing]

5. Actually, I do know quite a lot about it

but, as people have tried explaining to this forum time and time again, things are only backed up if you want them to be backed up.

[yella_dawg]

6. What part of "required by law" do you not get?

Do you have any idea how hard it would be, and how many people would have to be involved, to not backup the White House network?

[Little Wing]

7. What part of RNC != WH do you not get?

[jwirr]

8. That is what happened in Watergate. Nixon and co. thought they

had it all erased but low and behold there was a third copy that was kept by another system for posterity. Let us hope we can find it before they do because there is no doubt that they are out to destroy every piece of evidence they can find.

[lonestarnot]

4. kick