Whitehouse Emails Were Lost Due to "Upgrade"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "We now know how the Whitehouse managed to lose about five million emails. It seems that they 'upgraded' their Lotus Notes system, which had an automatic retention and backup system, for Microsoft Exchange, which did not support the automatic system. So they changed it to a manual process, where aides would manually sort emails one by one into individual PST files, which they call a 'journaling' archive system. They're still building a replacement for the retention system. Right when they had one finished, the White House CIO complained that it made Microsoft Exchange too slow, so they hired yet another contractor to build another one, causing a senior IT official to quit in protest. So they still haven't completed the project after almost eight years, and rely on humans to sort millions of emails."

This is a classic case of...

"Strategic Incompetence"

Re:This is a classic case of...

"Mission Accomplished"

Re:This is a classic case of...

So, today the Bush administration is brilliant, and they came up with a genius plan to make email go away, while appearing incompetent.

Someone be sure to send me the talking points when we're back to "The Bush administration is staffed by morons", k?

(Such amazing IQ swings we see. Genius! Moronic! Brilliant! Ape-like! Bing-bam-boom! Sometimes several flip-flops in one day! One would almost wonder if the problem lies in the observers, rather than the observed.)

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence." I think "incompetence" covers it just fine; I'm sure this is hardly the first migration screwed up this way.

Re:This is a classic case of...

(Such amazing IQ swings we see. Genius! Moronic! Brilliant! Ape-like! Bing-bam-boom! Sometimes several flip-flops in one day! One would almost wonder if the problem lies in the observers, rather than the observed.)

The problem lies in this ridiculous line of thinking where someone can only ever have one adjective applied, and that adjective must apply to everything they do.

Here's the dope: The Bush White House is quite adept at playing politics -- genius when Rove was involved -- including yes the ability to make apparent incompetence into a strength. They are skilled at making the organizations they control work for them, producing the information they want to hear, and failing to find or losing the information they don't want anyone to hear, to support their political goals. When it comes to actually executing policies outside of Washington, they're terrible failures because in reality you can't get rid of facts you don't like and keep only the ones you do.

What's so contradictory about that? I'm "brilliant" with computers, I'm "moronic" with cars. To think that one precludes the other is idiotic. But then again, so is the whole "flip-flop" figure of speech.

Am I the only one that

read the summary and understood the Whitehouse is blaming Microsoft? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

There is nothing that will happen for the rest of the week that can make me more light hearted than this. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Re:Am I the only one that

I imagine it sucks worse than what Clinton had them do.

I don't know if sucks worse is the right phrase to use here.

These days...

It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between subterfuge and sheer incompetence.

These days?

Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with saying "Never blame on malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence."

Re:These days?

And any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Re:These days?

Once you get to a certain level of incompetence, it's really indistinguishable from malice. In this case, the incentives are all there for them to want to keep this "problem" in place. It lets them conveniently lose any incriminating email and blame it on "them dang computers". Everyone's lost some files at one time or another, right? Ok, so maybe you didn't have your own IT department in charge of running the communications for the most powerful government in the world...

Re:These days...

It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between subterfuge and sheer incompetence.

Because the bullshit is so deep?

So to summarize

The White House's failure to follow records retention laws was due to deficiencies in Microsoft software?

I predict this will lead to a civil, thoughtful Slashdot discussion which results in many useful recommendations for avoiding similar problems in the future.

I recommend fire.

The dog ate my incriminating evidence

Seriously, this is the least bullshit excuse the could come up with? If ANY corporation in the US tried this kind of thing, the wrath of SARBOX would rain down on them like you wouldn't believe.

Even given the staggering incompetence of the Bush administration in nearly all aspects, this just doesn't pass the laugh test.

Seems like a market for e-mail archiving...

1) To bad the Whitehouse isn't using an e-mail system like millions of other people. Wait they are. Like it or not MS Exchange is everywhere.
2) To bad the requirement for e-mail archiving and retention is unique to government. Wait, most publicly traded companies have legal and compliance requirements to do so.
3) To bad there is no market for software to archive and retain e-mail on one of the most common e-mail platforms. Wait, there is, and its huge.
4) To bad nobody has nobody has developed technology for this market. Wait, there are dozens of solutions.

To bad no one is getting fired, imprisoned or impeached over this one.

Re:Seems like a market for e-mail archiving...

Too bad that you're grammer sucks, you meant?

Nothing to worry about.

and rely on humans to sort millions of emails.

No problem. They had the job outsourced to India.

bloody hell.

utter bollocks. just unbe-fucking-lievable.

*every* backup system should result in a set a of data offsite or in a storage area never to be touched again.

even if you use incremental backup every nth backup should be a complete archival read only copy re the previous sentence.

the *very* worst case should be the last major backup is in a format that is not readable with the current system and some red faced admins need help to read read the data.

5 million emails? jesus wept.

add the conspiracy theory factor into the mix and you have something that, on the face of it, sounds unbelievable.

as one of our politicians in the UK said to another a short while ago "you cannot have it both ways, you were either ignorant or incompetent - and neither is acceptable".

Criminal?

So, assuming for a moment their story is true and it *is* just negligence, incompetence, and stupidity; it is still FEDERALLY CRIMINAL negligence, incompetence, and stupidity, Right? Books will be thrown at those responsible, yes?

Sorry, No. I don't believe it.

One of my first projects after moving to Vancouver was a couple of test installations of pre-release Exchange server back in 1996. Since then I've worked constantly with every version of Exchange in all kinds of backup situations. Early versions of Exchange were a bitch to restore but it's gotten better.

However, there has *always* been a way to retain and archive emails automatically from Exchange and no shortage of migration utilities from notes to Exchange. The reasons stated in the article just don't wash. No one, not even the newest tech school grad could come up with a system like that currently in use.

However, it may in fact not be intentional malice from the start but more likely an existing state of incompetence that was taken advantage of to hide traces or misdeeds or at least to make finding any evidence difficult.

This still doesn't address the use of non-government email systems for official business by Rove and other Republican members. According to the laws of the United States this is all highly illegal. Don't you care at all about what your government is doing or do you think whatever you do won't make any difference?

They are still lying

everything that goes through the WH is:

a: saved to tape and sent to a vault on a daily basis
b: recorded by the NSA, who also saves and backs up data

So, it's all a load of bullshit - they're thinking that the public is stupid enough to buy it, or, simply kick it down the road another month or two until the ADHD press finds something shiny to get distracted by like Miley Cyrus Boobs or another blast from Trainwreck Spears.

RS

Re:yes it is.

Not to defend microsoft, but COME ON! Who do they have doing their tech support? Is Bush doing it himself?

I find this frankly impossible to believe, and insulting on top of that.

Re:But Exchange is supposed to be better!

why throw out what works?

Because "works" in this case is a means by which they can get caught?

If I was going to be as corrupt/incompetent as this administration, I'd try to limit how much that criminality/idiocy could be directly documented for criminal proceedings/historical study.

Re:Six P's

This shouldn't be taken as a Micr$oft bash as much as an example of poor planning.

Or perhaps an example of really good planning. If I was planning to make sure a few million potentially incriminating emails never found their way into the public eye, that is how I might do it. Certainly if I had spent a number of meetings discussing how and when Americans should torture people [washingtonpost.com] I would be motivated to do so.

Re:so to summarize...

Basically this comes down to either:

The Government was Incompetent.
or ...
The Government is lying and covering up.

I understand the concept of Occam's Razor, but it could really be a case of AND instead of OR.

It fits the results better, actually.

Re:The moral of the story

How is incompetence an excuse for violating the Presidential Records Act?