Hiding Sensitive Data Can Be Tough in a Digital Age

[Steve Schear]

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 13 — The modern task of successfully destroying 
electronic documents has become daunting enough to give Oliver North 
nightmares.

Mr. North is the Marine officer who became notorious during the Reagan-era 
Iran-contra scandal after it was discovered he had tried to delete 
thousands of e-mail messages, only to discover that they had been retained 
on backup tapes and made available to Congressional investigators.

The issue of the destruction and possible retrieval of electronic data 
burst into the news last week after Arthur Andersen & Company, the auditors 
for the Enron Corporation (news/quote), said that the accounting firm had 
destroyed a "significant but undetermined" number of documents relating to 
Enron and its finances.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/technology/ebusiness/14DELE.html