Clio

#5 Comments

1. Comment by Charles M. Barnard — March 12, 2010 @ 4:01 pm

   Well, all very nice but software as a service has been around since the 1960’s–it never really went away.

   Prognostications are all fine, but the fact is, no one ever remembers down the line if they were correct or not.

   Clio’s statement regarding security bothers me:

   “The security of your data is of the utmost importance, as such we take all reasonable precautions to protect the information you entrust to us. Traffic to your web-browser is secured using bank-grade 256-bit SSL encryption. Data is stored in an enterprise-class, secured hosting environment that is backed-up daily to aid recovery in the event of an emergency.
   ”

   It, like most such statements, is full of nearly meaningless hype.
   “…reasonable precautions…bank-grade…enterprise-class…secured hosting…” are all meaningless.

   What is reasonable to you may not be reasonable to me, for instance, I would not like any significant daily volume of data protected by ‘daily’ back-up…and there is nothing about the logical or physical security of that back-up.

   “Bank-grade” – do you mean like the unsecured transmissions of data that banks depended upon for ATM transactions for the first 5 years? Or the “phone call” security international wire-transfers depended upon for decades? Neither of which is secure at all.

   “Secured hosting” can mean anything from ‘we have a lock on the door.’ To ‘all data is encrypted using megabit keys generated and stored by the user only, with no logical or physical access without multiple method verification of identity and multiple unsuccessful attempts at access wipe the data store and call for military force response.’

   Transmitted data is encrypted. Fine. (Though 256-bit keys are tiny!) What about server data? What is the encryption algorithm? Is it open-source? Who generates the keys? Who stores the keys? How is security authenticated and tested? How is the data and the backup data protected from physical disaster?

   It’s not that I’m against this type of service–on the contrary, I think that it has many benefits for many different individuals and firms, but hype is worrying since it is, like all advertising, designed to appeal to the emotions without carrying any actual content…the favorite route of all conmen.

   The fact is, especially in small firms, nearly ANY online service which is reasonably well designed and built, is markedly superior to the methods that they are likely to be using internally.

   “Better” however, does not mean “good enough.”

   Perhaps the most worrying thing I see in law office data handling is that a LOT of communications these days, between lawyers and between lawyers and courts, travels via open, plain-text email. Security consisting of a note on the email stating that you shouldn’t read it if it isn’t addressed to you.

   As always, what is ‘best’ depends upon who you are and what your concerns are–encryption between server & client is useless if the keyboard or client is compromised, and, as always, any security can be broken by someone with the will and resources. By nature, a security system must have NO holes or weak spots and an intruder need only find a single exploit to render the entire system worthless (and sometimes those exploits are VERY cheap and easy (e.g. installing or tapping an internal security camera with a view of a workstation….)

2. Pingback by Sexy Document Management, Software Implementation Strategies, and SaaS « NetDocuments SaaS Blog — March 17, 2010 @ 9:20 am

   [...] Why SaaS Will Go Mainstream in 2010 [...]

3. Comment by Anatoly Soyfer — March 18, 2010 @ 5:23 am

   This is an exciting time for cloud based products! ContractExpress.com the cloud based document assembly product and the company that I work for (Business Integrity) is making some big strides as well. We were featured in a recent TechnoLawyer newsletter. Seth Rowland called our Relevance engine “magical”. Shout out to Seth, we appreciate the comment.
   We are all very excited about the potential of SaaS and are constantly working to push our SaaS product to outperform everything else, cloud-based or otherwise.

   To comment on security, I agree that it is an issue and it always will be. The “bank-grade” stuff may be a bit on the fluff side and it would be nice to see some hard facts but let’s take a step back.

   Isn’t it harder to tap a security camera pointing to a work station, or gain access to a server than to break into a law firm office and rummage through some physical files? sure one is more dangerous in the traditional sense, but also requires less skill and knowledge.

   As for Disaster recovery and back ups, Storing data locally does not prevent that either. If you are uncomfortable with how your data is stored, take the extra step to get an additional physical back up because at the end of the day, it’s your data. I have faith in Microsoft, HP and my windows home server but I still back things up one a second hard drive,because I’d rather have my data if something goes wrong than bitch about it.

4. Comment by Andy Bucher — March 18, 2010 @ 8:18 am

   can we get some SaaS support between Clio and my Blackberry already?!?

   You and RIM are both Canadian companies are you not? Perhaps a quick moose ride between Corporate HQs?

5. Comment by Andy Bucher — March 25, 2010 @ 7:34 pm

   Is this thing on?!? BB app? anyone hearing me?

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