dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) (03/08/87)
In article <1180@midas.TEK.COM> hankb@midas.UUCP (Hank Buurman) writes: >In article <2990@ihlpg.ATT.COM> ejbjr@ihlpg.ATT.COM (Branagan) writes: >>Assume even private email messages might be read by anyone. >Administrators: Is this a common practice? >Regardless of the argument put forward in your article, I consider e-mail >to have the same privacy privilidges (sp?) as snail mail. When I took over as news administrator at stl, and 'dww' was added to the news alias, I was surprised to discover that all news postings here are mailed to the news administrator - for the reason previously stated, namely as a check that people are not posting confidential information to the world. I do not plan to change this, but I will be posting a note to the local general group to advise local users that I will see all their postings. Thanks to this discussion for reminding me. I think this behaviour is reasonable with public postings, and posters should assume it happens at their site unless told otherwise. With two exceptions I do NOT think that (even!) system administrators should read mail, and I very much doubt many do. However, it is technically possible on UNIX, VMS and probably most other systems for the system manager to do this. Exception 1 is during testing - in testing a new mail transport system it is sometimes necessary to log all traffic, which will include the message text. The system manager of my "home" machine has just written an improved interface to UNIX mail using SMTP over the Ethernet, which does this. So until he is sure the software is reliable, he will be able to read all my mail. I don't much like this but I accept it because (a) I trust him and (b) I too want that interface to be fully debugged and reliable. Note that the same problem occurs with installing telephone systems. I have been involved in installing telephone exchanges; part of the administration's tests necessarily include listening to see that the calls are getting through and that the users are not having problems with wrong numbers or noise etc.. The people who do this have to follow a strict code of conduct (in the UK I imagine that they sign the Official Secrets Act), and certainly they do not concern themselves with the subject matter. Exception 2 is when someone has left the company, but mail (electronic or paper) still arrives for him/her. One could just bin it, but in practice, if it is someone who used to work for me, I try to identify whether it is private mail or to do with our company. In the former case we send it on if we can, in the latter we forward it to the appropriate person. With paper mail we can often - but not always - distinguish the two from the envelope, and only open that if we really have to. With electronic mail it isn't usually possible to read the envelope without seeing the mail inside it (does X400 have a 'Personal & Confidential, to be opened by addressee only' flag, I wonder?). Except for what is technically feasible, electronic and paper mail should be treated alike in this respect. P.S. In posting this article to the net, I am aware that it will also be mailed to the local news administrator (me) and the local system manager (not me), who would not otherwise see it, as he does not read news. -- Regards, David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, U.K. dww@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...seismo!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWW