re: Government has rotten email systems, IRS loses more emails of 6

I just got done reading through the thread because the topic was interesting.

There seems to be some confusion from the IT side on some of the users comments:

1. When talking about how the emails were lost some were referring to the computer (a laptop i believe) and the server.

The response to this is that this is completely irrelevant and has no relation on whether the files can be recovered or not. The true backups are not stored on the server or on the local computer. Just because you delete a file or email does not mean it is 'gone'. The file is simply deleted from the server or your mailbox, however the backup(s) that were taken are stored elsewhere and can be used to recover the file in the future. (this topic can get detailed quick, I am just trying to keep it high level)

So to those who were referring to the local workstation / server...The real question is what was the backup method and why can they not simply retrieve the file from the backups.

2. Some were stating that they couldn't retrieve the email going back to 2011 or something like that...another was stating that they put in a request with several agencies and they could not get the files.

I certainly cannot speak for the IRS or every agency in the state of Louisiana however I did work for the State of Louisiana for over 10 years and I spent about 5 years as the person who backed up the email server as one of my many roles. At my place of employment we kept everything going back at least 10-15 years if not more. Once every couple of years we would have a request to restore email from 10-15 years back. The backups in our case were kept on tapes and stored in several locations. Even if one of the locations was erased, say a fire/flood whatever we could still restore the file from the tapes at the other location.

Again the real question is why can they not simply get the files from the backup.

3. Specific users lost data...in this case I think it was mentioned that 5-7 specific people lost all their email....that is fine, but why can they not retrieve the files from backup? In this instance you rarely don't have specific people who you can't retrieve data from but either the entire set is good or bad...while there are scenarios that a particular user(s) cannot be retrieved it is more common that it is an all or nothing type deal.

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My final comment is that I believe they are using the IT angle to stall the situation just as they have stalled every step of the way. Saying it is not on the server or the laptop failed or whatever is just a step to slow things down. Once the heat comes on they will somehow restore the data from back...again another point where something will 'fail' and leave room to stall the situation...then they will have a partial set...so again stall...produce...then they will have to sift through the email...again stall...just this process alone could go on for months or even years.

What I would like to see is someone with power come up and say if you can't produce the emails then the people in IT responsible for the backups from management down to the front line employee who are responsible need to be fired. I bet IT would produce the emails in a matter of hours...Just need to bypass that red tape at the top and go straight to the source.