george@vax1.ccs.cornell.edu (George R Boyce) (04/22/87)
In article <1073@epimass.UUCP> jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) writes: >... >Foothead did not own any part of the machine he was using. Ambar was >using her root privs properly; I would do the same on my machine. I probably would too, but I don't agree that it would be "right" or "legal". >... > The system administrator not only has the right, but the >DUTY, to investigate in cases like this. If she had come across any >confidential information in the process of investigating, it would be >her moral obligation not to reveal it to anyone else. But if she >came across incriminating evidence -- burn the dude! The majority of system administrators probably agree with you. And a lot of bosses think they can search an employee's desk and every high school principal thinks they can search a student's locker. A number of state governments disagree though... At Cornell the policy is that we can not even ask that the user sign away their right to privacy. But then Cornell is a little strange sometimes... >- Joe Buck {hplabs,ihnp4,sun,ames}!oliveb!epimass!jbuck > seismo!epiwrl!epimass!jbuck {pesnta,tymix,apple}!epimass!jbuck