Tag Archives: e-discovery

July 18, 2023 · 10:58 AM

X1 Social Discovery Integration with Relativity Proves to Be Game Changing in Several High Stakes Matters

By John Patzakis

Social media is a critical source of relevant evidence in nearly every legal matter. However, most tools collect such evidence using print/screenshot methods that generate flat file images that cannot be effectively displayed and analyzed in review platforms. Law firms and other litigants faced a critical but previously unmet requirement for social media data to be displayed and reviewed in Relativity in its native format and parsed so that each individual Facebook post, Tweet or Instagram is displayed as a record in Relativity, with its own associated metadata, photos, indexed text and in-line comments. This allows for the individual Facebook or Instagram posts, Tweets, etc. to be searched, filtered, tagged, and reviewed at the post level, with all associated metadata and comments inline. This also enables the native Relativity AI analytics tools to be applied to this social media data, which is impossible when imported as mere flat file image screenshots. X1 has solved this critical challenge.

With Relativity and RelativityOne being the industry-leading review platform on the market, X1 sought to streamline the export process from X1 Social Discovery to Relativity to provide an efficient and scalable workflow for the abundant eDiscovery and investigations customer base. X1’s game changing social media and web-based data collection solution, X1 Social Discovery, offers the ability to collect and search data from popular social media platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube), websites, and email utilizing a truly unique approach. X1 Social Discovery’s innovative Relativity integration has uniquely provided the ability collect social media and webpages in their native format at the object (post) level with associated metadata, photos, and in-line comments intact, allowing for individual import for review in RelativityOne as individual records. Social Discovery is the only eDiscovery solution today that enables Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other social media data to be displayed in Relativity at the post level, where each post is an individual record.

In contrast, the alternatives are web plug-in tools that generate flat file image PDFs as its final output. So, if there are 30 social media posts that are in a feed, a single monolithic image PDF will be generated as the collection output. These bulk screenshots are of very limited value as they are not collected in native format, retain no post-level metadata, and are not searchable (absent a secondary and inferior OCR process). This output is practically useless for a review platform (as the entire output is one object).

The X1 Social Discovery Relativity Integration has been successfully utilized throughout multiple organizations including large corporate legal departments, government agencies and law firms for evidentiary purposes within investigations and compliance related matters.

In a recent case that provides a great representative illustration, one of the Top 50 Law Firms in the U.S. was able to successfully use this integration in an employment class action to import over 20,000 Facebook Group posts and other social media items collected by X1 Social Discovery seamlessly into Relativity without any manual processing steps. During the review, they were able, thanks to X1 importing all items as native objects with preserved metadata, inline comments and extracted text, to search, filter and review all the social media items in Relativity. The attorneys and paralegals were able to quickly and easily view all the pieces of a particular post together giving them a comprehensive understanding of the social media content. This capability led to a successful outcome that would simply be impossible without X1 Social Discovery.

To see this critical and unique functionality in X1 Social Discovery v7, please watch our product tour on-demand. Alternatively, we would welcome the opportunity to brief you and your colleagues directly. Please contact us to speak with a member of the X1 Team.

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July 12, 2023 · 11:47 AM

eDiscovery Journal Highlights X1’s Game Changing Support of MS 365

By John Patzakis

Greg Buckles of the eDJ, arguably the top independent eDiscovery industry analyst, penned an important article outlining X1’s support for MS 365 data sources within the X1 Enterprise Collect platform and how it even surpasses in many respects Microsoft’s own Premium Purview services. In his post, Buckles first listed X1’s “top level take-aways” as follows:

• X1’s Teams support targets individual custodians and specific messaging threads, displacing any need to mass download Teams chats and channels.
o X1 collects and searches Teams content directly without relying on the Microsoft Graph content search API, which has known gaps.
• X1 indexes, searches and processes Teams data in-place, removing any reliance on premium processing or supplemental services.
o Modern attachments are collected and searched in place and automated data formatting enables one-click upload into Relativity for review.
• Unified search and collection of on-premise and cloud data sources, including Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Mail, laptops and file-shares for an optimized workflow
o Provides True ECA and processing capabilities at the point of collection. Assess, process, and collect only what is needed, narrowing funnel at point of collection.

Buckles then notes that “archiving and enterprise search products like Autonomy IDOL struggled to deliver a ‘universal index’ for decades.” Similarly, Microsoft 365 “can struggle to meet the stringent eDiscovery/compliance requirements.” Specifically, Buckles noted that Microsoft Purview faces significant throughput limitations as documented by his own performance testing: “Past Purview advanced indexing performance testing for eDJ corporate clients resulted in limiting SLA’s to 1-3 full custodians per day.” Conversely, Buckles writes that “X1’s distributed index approach allows them to expand a user’s M365 sources to include desktops, file shares and 3rd party content such as Dropbox. It offloads much of the processing overhead to endpoint devices and avoids some of Purview Premium’s throughput limits for larger custodial matters.” As noted in the article, X1’s benchmark testing of 25 mailboxes in 4-8 hours and we have seen that scale in parallel.

Many customers report to us that Microsoft Purview Premium’s documented inability to timely handle anything other than small matters due to their 2GB per hour throughput limit (which X1 is not subject to due to our direct connection approach) is disqualifying for them. eDiscovery and investigation matters need to be addressed expediently. X1 can address a matter involving 100 custodians at 10GB of MS 365 data each within 24 hours (search, collection and export), while Microsoft Purview Premium, per Buckles’ performance testing and Microsoft’s own documentation, would take up to several weeks.

Additionally, Buckles’ generally referenced, including linking to Microsofts’ documentation, identifying other Purview Premium limitations such as not searching files and attachments over 150 MB, not addressing hidden mail folders, and not accessing files and emails without “compliance copies.” X1 is not subject to these limitations.

The X1 Enterprise Collect Platform is available now from X1 and its global channel network in the cloud, on-premise, and with our services available on-demand. For a demonstration of the X1 Enterprise Collect Platform, contact us at sales@x1.com. For more details on this innovative solution, please visit www.x1.com/x1-enterprise-collect-platform.

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Filed under Best Practices, Cloud Data, Corporations, ECA, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, ESI, MS Teams, OneDrive, Preservation & Collection, SharePoint

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June 13, 2023 · 10:14 AM

Law Firms Are Demanding Native, Post-Level Collection of Social Media Evidence to Support Standard Review and Analytics Workflows

By John Patzakis

Two months ago, X1 launched version 7 of our X1 Social Discovery social media and web collections solution. This major upgrade features a new cutting-edge Instagram connector, along with our revamped Facebook support, where all our users now have native post-level collection and parsing to ensure accuracy, key metadata collection, court authentication, and evidentiary completeness of the collected data. As stated by X1 CEO Larry Gill: “Nothing short of those capabilities is acceptable and that is why I can confidently say that X1 Social Discovery is the only solution in the industry capable of delivering all those requirements.”

Version 7 has been a huge success, with record sales seen since its release. In fact, in speaking recently with several attorneys at top law firms, it’s very clear both how important such native post-level collection is in order to support standard attorney review and data analytics workflows, and that there is a disconnect with some practitioners who are utilizing alternative web plug-in based screen shot generation tools that do not support these now basic but essential requirements.

It is very important to understand the unique ability of X1 Social Discovery to perform post-level native collection of each social media post. This means that the social media post is collected in its native format and parsed so that it has its own associated metadata, photos, indexed text and in-line comments. This allows for the individual Facebook or Instagram posts, Tweets, etc. to be searched, filtered, tagged, and exported individually at the post-level with all associated metadata and comments inline. The ability with X1 to tag, sort, authenticate (with individually associated hash values), and upload individual posts by up to thousands at a time without manual processing into an attorney review platform is essential for an efficient and scalable workflow. And X1 is the only solution that can deliver this critical functionality.

In contrast, the web plug-in tools generate flat file image PDFs as its final output. So, if there are 30 posts that are in a feed, a single monolithic image PDF will be generated as the collection output. These bulk screenshots are of very limited value as they are not collected in native format, retain no post-level metadata, and are not searchable (absent a secondary and inferior OCR process). This output is practically useless for a review platform (as the entire output is one object).

Additionally, as we all know, AI-based analytics is a game-changing capability that is now a standard feature of the leading eDiscovery review platforms. However, ESI must be properly collected in order to support such AI. Semantic AI engines ingest and analyze the extracted text and metadata of individual emails, electronic documents, social media posts and web pages. Only X1 Social Discovery collects full text & post-level metadata and performs and maintains the collection at the individual object-level, all of which is necessary to support upstream AI analysis. Using the web plug-in tools is a decision to not use AI on your case for social media and website evidence.

Another key differentiator is that X1 Social Discovery is a robust software application that can be installed on a computer, including virtual cloud servers. This enables X1 to take advantage of the full CPU and RAM resources available to address heavy workloads as needed with multi-threading capabilities. As a result, X1 can run multiple collections at the same time, auto-expand and auto-scroll across thousands of posts, and collect posts with thousands of comments. For instance, a web crawl collection, a Facebook collection, and a YouTube collection can be run at the same time. Data can be reviewed and analyzed immediately as it populates.

Further, social media collections often involve thousands of posts with hundreds of associated comments and multiple images. This requires adequate resources to perform auto-expanding and auto-scrolling of pages, comments, and images. X1’s architecture provides for such a scalable workflow.

In contrast, the web plug-in tools are web browser plug-ins that face very limiting performance ceilings and functionality constraints inherent to any such plug-in. Many users report limitations beyond capturing a few dozen posts at a time at best, with an inability to capture all comments when they number in the hundreds or numerous clustered images in thumbnail format. For this reason and many others, the web plug-in tools are generally considered a low market tool for one-off small collections.

Additionally, the legal evidentiary defensibility provided by X1 Social Discovery is in a class by itself. This is because X1 captures over a dozen unique item-level metadata fields, including the URL of the individual post (not bulk feed), User ID, Post ID, date stamps and other key metadata. Importantly, each post, which is an individual object, has its own hash value generated at the time of collection. So, when thousands of individual posts, YouTube videos, and web pages are collected into a case, and there is then a need to provide a subset of those items into a review platform or produced in discovery, the hash value and post-level metadata for each item remains intact.

The web plug-in tools only record general URLs of the bulk collection, a hash of the entire “all or nothing” bulk PDF export containing up to dozens of individual posts, with no individual hash values or metadata fields specific to any of those posts. There is an important distinction here between object-level metadata (i.e. each post) and metadata associated with the bulk feed image. If the web plug-in tools capture 50 posts in a single image feed, and the client may only want 4 of them moved into a review platform for further review, there is no way to do that except for taking secondary Snagit-type screenshots, rendering the chain of custody broken and the hash value inapplicable.

Finally, the court in Edwards v. Junior State of America Foundation, No. 4:19-CV-140-SDJ, (US Dist. CT, E.D. TX 2021), specifically ruled that only HTML or JSON social media collections are defined as “native file collection.” Flat PDFs are not.

To see this critical and unique functionality in X1 Social Discovery v7, please watch our product tour on-demand. Alternatively, we would welcome the opportunity to brief you and your colleagues directly. Please contact us to speak with a member of the X1 Team.

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Filed under Authentication, Best Practices, eDiscovery, ESI, law firm, Preservation & Collection, Social Media Investigations, Social Media Metadata

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May 16, 2023 · 10:54 AM

X1 Delivers Cutting-Edge MS Teams Support

By John Patzakis

The prominence of Microsoft 365 data sources continue to grow in eDiscovery matters exponentially. However, most non-MS eDiscovery tools collect from MS 365 by simply making bulk copies of data associated with individual accounts, and then attempt to transfer that data en masse to their own proprietary processing and/or review platform. Such an effort is very costly, time-consuming, and inefficient for many reasons. For one, this bulk transfer triggers data transfer throttling by Microsoft, causing significant time delays. But the main problem is that clients who are investing in MS 365 do not want to see all their data routinely exported out of its native environment every time there is an eDiscovery or compliance investigation.

So, enterprises with relevant data stored in MS 365 need to have a good process to perform unified and efficient search and collection of MS 365 and non-MS 365 sources. To achieve requisite efficiency and the minimization of data transfer, this process should be based upon a targeted search and collection in-place capability, and not simply involve mass export of data out of MS 365 for downstream processing and searching.

To answer this unmet critical need, X1 launched MS 365 data connectors to our X1 Enterprise Collect platform. X1 Enterprise Collect provides users the unique ability to search and collect MS 365 data in-place. X1’s optimized approach of iterative search and targeted collection enables organizations to apply proportionality principles across both cloud and on-premise data sources with clear and consistent results for effective eDiscovery.

And now, X1 has added cutting-edge Teams support to complete our existing support of OneDrive, MS Mail and SharePoint. The X1 Enterprise Collect Teams collection capabilities include the following unique benefits unmatched by other independent software providers:
• The ability to target individual custodians and specific messaging threads, displacing any need to mass download channels
• Unified search and collection of on-premise and cloud data sources, including Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Mail, laptops and file-shares for an optimized approach
• Patented index, search and process the data in-place, removes any reliance on premium processing or supplemental services
• One-click upload into Relativity for review, for a streamlined end-to-end process
• A truly automated product solution, as opposed to a service-based offering

Winston & Strawn eDiscovery partner Bobby Malhotra notes: “With the vast number of users and unyielding amount of data in collaboration applications such as Teams, having the ability to target and triage data by specific custodians and threads allows organizations to handle discovery in an efficient and pragmatic manner. X1 provides the unique ability to seamlessly collect and search across numerous web, collaboration, and social, data sources.”

Watch the X1 hosted webinar on-demand featuring the hot topic of Best Practices to Collect from MS Teams in an Effective, Defensible and Proportional Manner.

The X1 Enterprise Collect Platform is available now from X1 and its global channel network in the cloud, on-premise, and with our services available on-demand. For a demonstration of the X1 Enterprise Collect Platform, contact us at sales@x1.com. For more details on this innovative solution, please visit www.x1.com/x1-enterprise-collect-platform.

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Filed under Authentication, Best Practices, Cloud Data, collection, compliance, Corporations, Data Audit, ECA, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, ESI, law firm, MS Teams, OneDrive, proportionality, SharePoint

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April 24, 2023 · 3:56 PM

X1 Introduces Cutting-Edge Instagram Support with X1 Social Discovery Version 7

By Larry Gill

Since I joined the X1 team last year as CEO, I have made it my priority to double down on our support and expansion of our X1 Social Discovery solution. To that end, I am excited to announce that we have just launched version 7 of X1 Social Discovery, social media and web collections solution, which includes a new cutting-edge Instagram connector, along with our revamped Facebook support, where all our users now have native post-level collection and parsing to ensure accuracy, key metadata collection, court authentication, and evidentiary completeness of the collected data. Nothing short of those capabilities is acceptable and that is why I can confidently say that X1 Social Discovery is the only solution in the industry capable of delivering all those requirements.

Over the past year, I have spoken to many of our customers and prospects about what they need to support their social media eDiscovery collections and investigations. One thing that became clear: post-level native file collection for social media evidence, including Instagram, is essential.

Other tools simply provide bulk flat file screen shots of social media feeds, and are of very limited value, as they merely provide a screenshot PDF image file without searchable text or metadata, other than what is visible on the image itself. This does not meet the needs of attorneys and paralegals seeking to leverage and admit key social media and website evidence into their cases. For this reason, X1 has put in the work and R&D investment, and, as CEO, I am committed to doing so on an ongoing basis, so that our users would have native post-level collection and parsing as required.

X1 Social Discovery is the only solution to provide native file, post-level Instagram support, and in a manner that is fast and scalable. This enables the following top 5 key benefits for Instagram collections:

  1. Fast and Automated Instagram Feed Capture. X1 Social Discovery v7 captures hundreds of Instagram posts with assorted comments per hour. We have successfully captured several thousand posts in our testing, including individual posts that have hundreds of associated comments and replies. This level of performance is simply impossible with “web plug in” tools.
  2. Post-Level Collection, Filtering and Production. The ability to search, tag, sort, authenticate (with their own hash value), and produce individual Instagram posts with X1 is essential for an efficient and effective workflow. Other tools require “all or nothing” production & hash of the flat PDF output.
  3. Federated Search and Review. With X1, multiple Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and web page collections can now be searched, sorted, and reviewed in a unified manner. No other tools on the market have an integrated review capability.
  4. Robust Post-Level Metadata Capture. X1 Captures over a dozen unique item-level metadata fields for an individual Instagram post. Other tools only record general URLs of the bulk collection, a hash of the entire “all or nothing” bulk PDF export containing up to hundreds of individual posts, with no individual hash values or metadata fields specific to any of those posts.
  5. Deep Integration with Relativity for Review. X1 custom-developed a Relativity .RAP file that enables social media data (now including Instagram) to be displayed natively – at the post-level — in full context in Relativity, the same as it appears in X1 Social Discovery. All metadata is overlayed, and the comments are kept in line and in context. Importantly, each Instagram post collected by X1 is treated as an individual record in Relativity, instead of the bulk export from other tools being a single record. This enables efficient review as well as robust data analytics of social media evidence in Relativity.

To see all these exciting new features in X1 Social Discovery v7, please watch our product tour on-demand. Alternatively, we would welcome the opportunity to brief you and your colleagues directly. Please contact us to speak with a member of the X1 Team.

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Filed under collection, ECA, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, Enterprise Search, ESI, Information Governance, Information Management, Legal Ethics & Social Media, Preservation & Collection, Social Media Investigations, Social Media Metadata

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