Reply #31: You could delete them from the server, but...

[meldroc]

Let me clarify how much I know about computers. I am a software engineer. I do this for a living. I used to work for a major hard disk manufacturer, and I've also worked for a major computer manufacturer on two occasions, working with high end servers and mainframes. I know a lot of the technicalities about what happens when you delete stuff.

Traces would remain. To start with, deleting a file such as an email usually consists of removing the directory entry in the file system pointing to the file and marking the disk sectors where the file resides as free. The contents are still there, and frequently can be recovered by undelete utilities. If we're talking about a database or a mail server file, removing an email there will also leave traces behind.

Let's say you go all the way - format the disk. That will still leave data behind that can be recovered with forensics tools. Go a step further and wipe the entire hard disk. Now you're getting somewhere - you overwrite the entire hard disk. But... For one, it's now obvious to everyone with enough neurons to form a synapse what you've just done. What do you think Waxman and the rest of Congress are going to do if they hand you a subpoena and you hand them a hard disk containing nothing but random data. If you do that, you're going to jail. Also, that server's not the only place where those emails are stored. You have routers on the Internet where those emails passed through - those may have logs showing that those emails existed. You have the copies of emails saved on individual people's workstations. There may be hundreds of workstations out there with copies of some of the emails. In the DOJ document dumps we've already seen are references to some of the emails on gwb43.com - when those servers are subpoenaed, they'd better produce those emails if they know what's good for them. And those emails may reference other emails - better produce those too. Then there are backup tapes. If we're talking about a halfway competent ISP here, there will be an entire system in place for doing backups. In a typical environment, you'll have seven tapes, one for each day of the week, used for differential backups (where you only back up stuff that's changed or added since the previous day's backups.) You'll have four tapes containing full backups of everything, one backup done each Sunday, so those four tapes will keep the state of the systems for the entire previous month. Then you'll have a permanent backup for each month that goes into storage. In short, not only can you bring back the data on the email server as it was today, you can see what was on the machine yesterday, or last week, or six months ago, or three years ago. On top of that, you'll have off-site backups - you'll make a backup onto a tape once a month, and that tape's stored elsewhere, like in a safety deposit box, just in case the building burns down. Depending on how badly the ISP wants to be able to put itself back together quickly in case of a disaster, there may be a couple dozen backup tapes containing those emails. On top of that, we won't be talking about one server. There may be two, or even more servers, operating in parallel to ensure that email service is up and running at all times. And those servers won't have just one hard disk. They'll be running a RAID array with a whole bunch of hard disks (anything from four to dozens, depending on the scale), designed with redundancy in mind so if a hard disk, or even several hard disks fail, the data will still be there.

In short, if Waxman subpoenas the entire contents of gwb43.com's email system, saying "Oops, we lost a few messages." is NOT going to fly. Nobody who knows how these things work will believe that the email equivalent of Nixon's 18 1/2 minute gap can be produced unintentionally. Those emails are in that system, and if the RNC is following the law, they'll be able to produce them in a matter of minutes. If they say they can't they are LYING.