Over the next couple of months, best practices will be on the minds of each government agency. According to a recent FedScoop article, President Obama ordered federal agencies to evolve to an entirely digital-based records system, giving government agencies a 120-day window to develop a plan of action for the change.

The article quotes Obama, saying: “The current federal records management system is based on an outdated approach involving paper and filing cabinets. Today’s action will move the process into the digital age so the American public can have access to clear and accurate information about the decisions and actions of the Federal Government.” It also states that a report produced by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) discloses “agencies have done a poor job of managing the increased volume and diversity of information that come with advances in information technology.”

With the current estimated volume of government-stored data at 142 terabytes, our hope is that the administration is taking the necessary steps to ensure the security of this highly sensitive information. Surely, it has weighed the data confidentiality and privacy risks and most certainly will be moving forward with preventative solutions in mind, but has it considered how it will ensure the authenticity and integrity of the records that it’ll be storing?

By implementing a seamless, behind-the-scenes solution, such as a cryptographic digital timestamping technology that can provide  long-lasting, independently verifiable and standards based (ANSI X9.95 and ISO/IEC 18014-3) integrity protection, the government can be assured that stored records are preserved in their original, intended state.

Maintaining accurate and authentic records is critical to the operation of an effective and accountable government.  In order for our government agencies to successfully migrate to a completely paperless record system, electronic records management and authenticity assurance solutions must be incorporated.

- Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC

Hosted by Bob Flinton, vice president of marketing and product management at Surety and Kay Bross, director of member and vendor programs at SAFE-BioPharma Association, this webinar will provide valuable insight on how to protect the integrity and authenticity of electronic research within scientific environments.

In an industry where research is competitive and ever-evolving, the use of digital timestamping and electronic signatures to identify the “who” and “when” of groundbreaking research is essential to survival. However, there are many options for protecting intellectual property and understanding those differences may influence the use of/migration to an electronic workflow. Whether you’ve recently moved to an electronic format or plan to in the future, be sure to join Surety and the SAFE-BioPharma Association to learn first-hand how to effectively implement a “sign and seal” process and legally protect electronic intellectual property for the long-term.

What: Pharmaceutical Technology webinar, “Cost-Effective Solutions for Long-term IP Protection in Your Electronic R&D Environment”
Speakers: Bob Flinton, vice president of marketing and product management at Surety and Kay Bross, program director of member and vendor relations at SAFE-BioPharma Association
When: October 20, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. EDT
Registration: Register online for free

- Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC

Details of our trip abroad are listed below – we hope all of you registrants out there will join us at the workshop next week. If you can’t make it, check out our resources page for additional digital timestamping details. You’ll have access to podcasts, whitepapers, webinars and more.

What: IQPC’s ELNs and Advanced Laboratory Solutions Conference 2011
“Navigating Regulations and Ensuring the Legality of Your IP From the R&D Stage Forward”
When: September 26-28, 2011
Where: Hilton Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain
More Info: www.elnforum.com

- Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC

The integration enables school districts to prove the authenticity of their electronic student records should they ever be legally challenged. AbsoluteProof digitally timestamps (or “seals”) each student record, capturing the exact time and date it was created, and providing an independent means to prove that the records have not been changed or altered since the time they were “sealed.” This sealing process allows records and their data to be protected for the entirety of their existence. The SRC and Surety partnership is already providing systems and services to multiple school districts in all major markets and geographies throughout the country.

Read the press release here.

- Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC

We hope to see you next week!

-Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC

The web movie is designed to give you a sense of how our AbsoluteProof intellectual property protection solutions work, and the business value they deliver to R&D industries. If you’re newly introduced to Surety, or even if you’re a longtime user, take a look at this three-minute web movie and familiarize yourself with the capabilities and business-critical value that AbsoluteProof has to offer. You’ll see why so many members of the scientific R&D community trust AbsoluteProof with their data integrity protection needs.

-Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC

Ceglia claims that a contract exists between himself and Zuckerberg that grants him 50 percent of the company’s equity, and that there are emails that support this alleged agreement. While none of these documents have been presented in court, Ceglia’s lawyer brought in an outside expert to examine the computer used to create the alleged documents and verified when they originated. According to the lawyer, the documents are real and the argument is solid.

Facebook, of course, is challenging the authenticity of the emails, challenging that Ceglia fabricated them. The New York Times’ Bits Blog has said that the “authenticity of the emails could not be independently verified,” and according to ABA Journal, Facebook’s attorney, Orin Snyder from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, “called this new claim of supporting emails as ‘ridiculous’ as the original complaint filed in state court in New York, adding, in an email to Bloomberg, ‘This is a fraudulent lawsuit brought by a convicted felon, and we look forward to defending it in court.’”

Now, I’m not claiming to know the truth behind this case, and to be honest, it doesn’t really matter to me who the shareholders of the company are. But for argument’s sake, let’s just assume that the documents really do exist, in some shape or form.

What interests us in the matter is the authenticity of the emails.

You or I could easily forge an email, or type up a contract – the problem is, without data integrity controls, no one would ever know when they were created, what was contained in the original version, who created them, etc. And that’s where Ceglia might run into problems should he present the data to the court. Unless he had executed intellectual property protection best practices beforehand, the validity of the documents is basically based upon his own word, which will make it very difficult to get them admissible into evidence.

Alarmingly, I even saw an article by FoxNews’ Jeremy Kaplan where security experts talked about how at this point in the process, confirming the authenticity of the emails “technologically presents a near impossible challenge.”

Had Zuckerberg or Ceglia thought to use a data integrity protection solution along with critical business emails like these years ago, however, we wouldn’t even be in this mess. A data integrity protection solution, such as Surety’s AbsoluteProof, would have saved countless hours and dollars in this situation. With a solution like AbsoluteProof, it would have been easy to show the court the “seal” associated with the email, proving the authenticity of the document’s content, as well as the date and time in which it was created. Legal fees, court hours, reputations, etc., would have been saved had data integrity protection controls been put into place ahead of time.

While it might be too late for Zuckerberg or Ceglia, their situation offers the rest of us an important reminder. Proper records management is more important now than ever. If you have a document or electronic file of any type that you’d earmark as “critical” – whether it be an email, a contract, or files to support your intellectual property – why not protect them with the strongest data integrity protection solutions on the market? It can save you time and money down the road, and put you on the winning legal team should you or your records or files ever be challenged.

- Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC

This partnership will provide customers with a defensible methodology to collect legally-authentic and independently verifiable electronic evidence from Web pages, social-networking sites, and other Internet-based content. AbsoluteProof WebSeal eliminates the time, effort and costs associated with having to depose individuals or organizations responsible for the custodial management of such content, and enables rapid evidence collection when time-of-capture is critical.

AbsoluteProof WebSeal’s core engine is powered by Surety’s AbsoluteProof Service, a patented, cryptographical timestamping methodology that digitally “seals” electronic records and files, enabling customers to protect the integrity – and independently and irrefutably prove the authenticity – of their original electronic records throughout their chain of custody. With the AbsoluteProof Service, customers can confidently say their sealed content has not been altered in any way since the moment they were captured and “locked down.”

Read the press release here.

- Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC

Hosted by Margo Tank, Partner at Buckley Sandler, LLP and Bob Flinton, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Surety, this webinar will address the process of protecting electronic intellectual property (IP) in the biopharmaceutical and life sciences world. As these markets engage in and deploy digital processes, the use of electronic or digital signatures as methods for protecting research IP is becoming widespread. The benefits are obvious – convenience and efficiency. However, along with these benefits also come risks, including the risk of tampering, fraud and inadmissibility in court. But most R&D-centric organizations often overlook the fact that by just “signing” their electronic research records, they haven’t fully implemented the protections they need to prove ownership, authenticity and “time-of-creation” (first to invent). Organizations need to go a step further than just “signing” their valuable IP, but they should also “seal” it to prove the content was created at a specific point in time and hasn’t been altered since. This virtual event will explore these “sign and seal” concepts and requirements, and will discuss how you can implement simple, cost-effective controls to achieve legally enforceable scientific IP for the life of the content.

What: Pharmaceutical Technology webinar, “Protect and Legally Defend Your Scientific Intellectual Property: Digital Signatures Alone Aren’t Enough”
Speakers: Margo Tank, Partner at Buckley Sandler, LLP and Bob Flinton, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Surety
When: March 31, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. EDT
Registration: Register online for free

Focused solely on developing newly discovered drug compounds from cancer research considered ‘high risk’ by bio-technology and pharmaceutical companies, CTx is required to meet strict electronic record protection standards and secure its data from unauthorized changes or tampering. AbsoluteProof’s independent, digital timestamping functionality meets these needs and continuously helps prevent intellectual property theft and manipulation, such as backdating “first-to-invent” status, around the clock. In addition, AbsoluteProof provides scientists from institutions around the world with a centralized, easily accessible system that allows them to focus on their research, rather than time-consuming administrative tasks, including the signing and witnessing processes that are common in the bio-pharma industry.

“We realize the value of our IP through licensing deals, so we need to demonstrate to any potential partner or licensee that all critical electronic records and files will withstand the most vigorous legal scrutiny,” said Dr. Tony Evans, CEO of Cancer Therapeutics CRC. “All archived content must be able to be confirmed independently, and there must be no possibility of collusion, forgery or backdating. We rely on the AbsoluteProof Service to provide us with that defence, and it has allowed us to focus on what really matters – developing drug solutions and saving lives.”

Read the press release here.

- Bob Flinton
VP of Marketing and Product Management
Surety, LLC