[SATLUG] savings e-mails

[Sean Carolan]

On Nov 27, 2007 6:53 PM, Leif Johnson <leif at paisd.net> wrote:
>
> I'm flabbergasted that our state government can't figure out a
> cost-effective way to save copies of their own e-mails.

You're flabbergasted?  I worked briefly at a Texas state agency
several months ago. They have a sendmail server running Red Hat 6.2,
64MB of RAM.  It is a re-purposed desktop Pentium II desktop machine.
This is the primary SMTP server for some 8000 users.  If they can't
afford to upgrade this old clunker, do you really believe these folks
are preserving terabytes of saved emails?

> "Perry spokesman Robert Black said 'We do not have an electronic
> capability to go in and automatically save everybody's e-mails.'"

I believe this.  They probably have an exchange server with fixed-size
mailboxes, and no archives.  Once something is deleted, it's gone.

> Perry's office wants to charge citizen activist John Washburn $142 for
> each day's worth of e-mail messages he asked for...

That's a bit outrageous.  I hope Washburn keeps the pressure on.
Texas state's IT infrastructure is a dilapidated mess.  Hopefully IBM
can help shore it up a bit in the coming years.