Betrayed by a Copier!

Just when many firms are getting a handle on the legal aspects of stored data, there's a fresh crop of data sources to worry about -- namely, all that data lurking in temporary storage.

Senior editor James Rogers reports on the warnings sounded by experts at the LegalTech show in New York today about RAM, USB drives, and even the mundane office copier.

Yes, the humble bottom-feeder of office machinery could harbor corporate exposure. Since most copiers these days contain their own disk drives, it's plausible that company secrets could make their way into the hands of malefactors, or that compromising information could turn up in the wrong places.

Someday, we may hear about a CEO toppled by Copiergate. Tasered by a laser. Just think about what your company did with its last office copier. And what about that nice old guy in the blue pants who comes to take the thing apart every six months?

Paranoid? Yes. But unfortunately, storage managers will need to consider this angle, too, in an increasingly complex scheme of data management tasks.