Conspiring Against Your Employer? Watch What You Email 420
Eric Giguere writes "In a story that has Bay Street (the Canadian equivalent of Wall Street) in a kerfuffle, the Globe and Mail writes that bank employees defecting to set up a rival investment firm didn't realize that their employer could easily track the emails and messages they sent and received, even when they're sent via a nominally-secure system like RIM's BlackBerry. In particular, the employees were assuming that the messages they sent via direct PIN-to-PIN communication (a PIN uniquely identifies a BlackBerry device) weren't trackable. But if they're on the device, they're available to the employer to see. The employees may also have thought that PIN-to-PIN messages are encrypted, though RIM has always said that they're not -- it's only the connection to the corporate email server that is secure. A lot of damning information pulled from those emails and messages has made its way into a lawsuit."
Can I be the first to say "duh"? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're doing something with their resources like plotting against them... well...
gratitude (Score:3, Insightful)
Loyalty used to mean something in this country. I guess loyalty has gone the same way as traditional family values and faith in God.
Things are going to have to change, people.
Steve
No pity, no new violation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Silly Rabbits, its too late (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. But, how many idiots would set up a gmail account and then use their companies computer to access that account?
I'm a knee-jerk privacy freak, BUT (Score:3, Insightful)
The really shameful thing (aside from working on company time to screw your employer) is that these people didn't know this already. Looking at the list of those being sued, I see IT people who should have known better. Perhaps the company would have punished them more effectively by letting them go form their own company without understanding the basics of ethics, law (including allegedly trying to steal customer databases), or security.
Re:Another question, (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:gratitude (Score:1, Insightful)
While the CEO got a several million dollar bonus, natch.
Loyalty is earned. When employers start treating people well and don't lay them off at a moment's notice, then we'll think about being loyal to a company.
I think it's you who may have got your priorities the wrong way around...
Re:Can I be the first to say "duh"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:gratitude (Score:5, Insightful)
I admire loyalty, but there are situations where it's not warranted. Most corporations have chosen not to give or reward loyalty, so they get back in turn.
There's loyalty, and there's loyalty... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, these people were dumb, that much can be argued. They were dumb for using a monitored service to do this, and they were dumb for (ostensibly) stealing their company's resources for the purpose of setting up a competitor.
However, you need to decouple this from the loyalty argument. The loyalty you need to have is not to your company any more. Are they loyal to you if business turns sour and they have to start slashing the payroll? Hell no. The corporate sinecure is dead. "Ma" Bell doesn't evince the image of a benevolent mother any more.
The kind of loyalty you should have is to your projects, to your work, to you as an individual and to your Rolodex (or electronic equivalent.)
If you live every day as if you might be laid off, working on projects that will escalate your worth and making sure that lots and lots of people know what kind of value you contribute, then you'll be better off; your customers (those who are the beneficiaries of your projects) will be better off, and your company will be better off.
And if things should turn sour, then you shrug your shoulders, get your Rolodex out and start calling.
So instead of "Logo Loyalty" you should cultivate "Rolodex Loyalty" (thanks, Tom Peters. [tompeters.com])
Re:Can I be the first to say "duh"? (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean seriously, how dense to you have to be to realize that there is no expectation of privacy at work. It is usually spelled out in the policies. If they own or pay for the computer, the network, or whatever other methods your connect with, they are going to be able to know what is passing between those devices.
Duh.
decent crypto, properly used (Score:3, Insightful)
install gpg, or worse than nothing, use s/mime - but if you need to ensure privacy, you need to have (put) your own privacy layer in place.
(it's no good hoping and relying on magic pixies)
Lesson in stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
That means: keep the bits off their infrastructure. ALL of it.
Just like my workplace. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:gratitude (Score:3, Insightful)
Or the traditional family value of basically owning your wife and children... People miss "teaching others lessons" in the family.
If you pull back that blind nostalgia those traditional family values are no different than the ethics of Victorian England.... most of the time they were all a facade.
As intelligent people we should challenge tradition instead of complacently accepting that as good.
Re:gratitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahem.
Over 80% of the nation's population is Christian.
The are blue laws to prevent the sale of alcoholic beverages during certain days (Sunday) or completely in roughly 80% of the United States.
There are over one hundred cable channels nationwide devoted entirely to Christian programming.
Nearly very company in the U.S. is closed on Christmas.
"In God We Trust" is printed on all U.S. money.
And yet, every day someone claims religious persecution of the Christian religion.
Re:Can I be the first to say "duh"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Silly Rabbits should not start businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
it would cost the employer less to take out an add in the financial section pointing out that the upstart company was demonstrably dishonest and joining a competitive race with its intellectual pants down around its ankles than it would to sue the dummies.
Re:gratitude (Score:1, Insightful)
> instead of complacently accepting that as good.
Dude, _examine_ traditions to see whether they are good. Don't blindly _challenge_ them. Otherwise you've fallen into the silly fad of this age..
"_All_ intelligent people _must_ rebel, must never be sheep, contradict everything, question everything, go against everything, discount the wisdom of all elders."
Yes, faith in God, and loyalty in (heterosexual) marriage, not stealing, not conniving, and several (but not all) "traditional family values" are good. If you challenge them, you do so blindly, and contradict what is already within you - your own conscience.
Re:Can I be the first to say "duh"? (Score:5, Insightful)
This once happened to me. A router in my area lost its config. They claimed I did it. I replied that it could have been a lazy admin never doing a "wr mem". They told me that I could either sign a confession or they'd reassign me to an outside work area while they "investigated". My boss outright told me the investigation would take months while they bounced me from area to area and shift to shift.
Given that kind of culture, the employee always loses.
Re:Can I be the first to say "duh"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can I be the first to say "duh"? (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly, you've left something out, or more accurately, your friend did. He has an actionable case, but most likely, he did something else, and is passing this story off to his acquaintances. I seriously doubt it went down they way you claim.
Re:Can I be the first to say "duh"? (Score:2, Insightful)
The relationships between individuals and organizations are never equal, unless the individuals organize in some way.
Unions aren't angels