Cartoon 781: Now you see it ...

Media is becoming digital. The swing is most visible with the internet, email and the “appts” associated with cell phones and tablets. Printed media is evaporating.

The digital environment facilitates things in a more efficient manner. It enhances the creation process and the distribution of information. It also inaugurates a new level of control.

One of the primary tools of this new environment is the ability to perform obscure granular searches. This is referred to as “data mining”, in deference to the concept of digging. People and businesses have been trapped using these techniques. Information traditionally has been so voluminous that a manual search might take years or lots of luck. Now “web crawlers” are employed. Google and other search engines use web crawlers to index information of the internet. A web crawler is basically an automated program that goes out to websites and searches for key words. The program uses this information to add to the search engine “index” or location database. A search initiated in a web browser references this database to determine what results to return.

Crawlers software can be used to search most any digital media. Sometimes in the “discovery” process of a legal action, these data mining tools are employed. Many illegal stock option awards in large corporations over the last decade were identified in this manner. Steve Jobs of Apple was on the ropes more than once. It allows identification of things that would have been missed buried in mountains of financial detail.

The vast amount of information being generated has given rise to counter measures for restricting access. In the case of newspaper articles by big media companies published on the internet, there is an invisible and indelible water mark. This allows web crawlers to find instances of the information. This can also be used to eradicate information. Corporations are starting to roll out this method to protect themselves during a legal “discovery”.

It is no accident today that sometimes things just seem to disappear on the internet or in other digital environments. Amazon.com was in the news a year ago for erasing or modifying the content of ebooks already in user possession. James Murdock, of the Rupert Murdoch empire, has been in the news over the last several months. He was recently demoted. His crime was the discovery of email that contradicted the validity of his testimony.

Businesses are quietly indexing content of key individuals in their ranks. In a difficult legal situation the information can be easily eradicated in advance of a court order authorizing “discovery”. You also need to know that digital files do not have the legal standing of paper records. Hence why you still have to fax or photo copy legally binding information. People caught up in erroneous banking foreclosures need to be aware the digital records of the banks can be modified or go missing.

Imagine that all your electronic files can be tracked and modified. How secure are you really in a digital world? Do you remember the Will Smith movie “Enemy of the State”?