Project: Logging user activity

Between July 2005 and January 2007, a major international clothing retailer suffered a data breach that amounted to the theft of 45.6 million credit card numbers. TJX is the parent company of stores such as TJMaxx, Bob's Stores, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and AJ Wright stores in the United States, as well as Winners and HomeSense stores in Canada, and TKMaxx stores across Europe. The credit card information from most, if not all, of these stores was electronically burgled over an undetermined amount of time. After the breach was discovered, TJX spokeswoman Sherry Lang went on record as saying: "There is a lot of information we don't know, and may never be able to know, which is why this investigation has been so laborious" (Sources: AP, CNET).

Computer forensic examinations rely extensively on computer logs. Without sufficient logging, as seen in the case of TJX, one cannot tell where things went wrong if catastrophe strikes. While MySQL keeps its own logs, the fact...