Six Articles on Electronic - Craig Ball

Craig Ball © 2007
E‐Discovery Report Card: How Well Do TIFF Images Perform?
Craig Ball
Mark Twain observed, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” To e‐discovery vendors—paid by the
TIFF image and heavily invested in systems to convert digital evidence to TIFF images‐‐everything looks like a
candidate for production in TIFF. But how does TIFF really stack up against native production for the most common
file types in electronic discovery? Here’s TIFF’s report card:
Source Evidence Form or Forms of TIFF Production Grade Explanation
Paper Documents TIFF images with a load file
TIFF images paired with good OCR are ideally suited
containing OCR data
A to electronic production when the source evidence
exists only as paper documents
Electronic Mail
Word Processed
Documents
Spreadsheets
Databases
Digital Photographs
TIFF images with a load file
containing full message text and To,
From, CC/BCC, Date and Subject
Fields
TIFF images with a load file
containing full text and relevant
system and application metadata
fields (e.g., author, path, filename,
last modified date, last accessed
date, last printed date and both
stored creation dates).
TIFF images with a load file
containing full text and relevant
system and application metadata
TIFF images with a load file
containing full text and relevant
system and application metadata
fields
TIFF images
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Copyright 2006 Craig D. Ball
B
B
D
F
B
TIFF is suited to production of plain text e‐mail when
paired with production of searchable text and header
fields (sometimes mistakenly called “metadata”).
TIFF’s won’t always suffice for HTML‐formatted e‐
mail or for some common e‐mail attachments.
Though the printed version of a document can be
faithfully reproduced and electronically searchable
using a load file, application metadata (comments,
tracked changes, circulation lists, edit times, etc.) will
be lost unless extracted and produced. Formatting
won’t fairly represent the original unless the TIFF is
virtually “printed” using the same formatting settings.
Spreadsheets contain three‐dimensional data (e.g., a
grid of computed values derived from underlying
formulae and/or multiple stacked/linked worksheets)
that TIFF can’t handle even with load files. But TIFF
might suffice for spreadsheets without formulae (e.g.,
tables) that fit on a single page or two.
Enterprises use databases throughout their
operations, and even everyday programs like
Microsoft’s Outlook and Intuit’s Quicken store their
data in database formats. TIFF images are incapable
of presenting database information in a useful or
intelligible manner, with or without load files.
TIFF does a good job on photographic information
when resolution is adequate and TIFF formats
supporting color are used. TIFF productions often
miss the non‐pictorial data found in common digital
file formats, such as camera identification and EXIF
and RAW data, and alteration (“Photoshopping”) is
harder to detect using TIFF.
Audio Files Not feasible Voice mail and integrated messaging use sound
F
formats to store data. TIFF can’t store audio.
Video Files Not Feasible F TIFF can’t store video or animation.
Redacted Data TIFF images with an OCR load file
Ironically, TIFF’s limitations make it a superior format
for producing redacted data because it’s incapable of
A preserving parts of the evidence not seen on a
printed page. Hence, it’s closest to paper in its ability
to support obscured (i.e., “blacked out”) text.