Slashdot Mirror
Conspiring Against Your Employer? Watch What You Email
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."
Honestly now, any communication that passes through any computer controlled by your company can be seen. Even if they were encrypted, if, at any point they are EVER stored outside of volatile memory unencrypted, they're available.
If you're doing something with their resources like plotting against them... well...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
They deserve what they get. How is that for repaying your employer? He writes you a check, puts bread on your table, and you pay him back by using his own property to steal his business. Ridiculous.
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
I'm sorry, but I feel no pity for people being caught this way. Its very clear when you start working somewhere that the computers you use are the property of the employer, and you should expect no privacy from these machines. They used company owned BlackBerries because they thought it would be secret (implying that they knew other company computers were not). If you use something company owned because you think it is secure, while other company propery is not secure, it just shows you dumb enough to be caught. If they were so concerned about their privacy, they should not have used any company property.
Yes. But, how many idiots would set up a gmail account and then use their companies computer to access that account?
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.
Behold the riant ape! Beware, his crooked thumbs!
You'd think a group of people with enough assets to set up an investment banking firm could afford their own set of blackberries.
Loyalty still means something, but it may not be what you think it means.
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.)
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
sorry, but if i was trying to pull a fast one on my current place of employment (or otherwise rip someone off, or carry out some kind of espionage), i'd be a total fool to think any existing comms channels were secure -- /without/ having put in my own layer of encryption, to which only i have the key/passphrase.
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)
Rule #0: If you're planning on screwing over your employer (an ethical conundrum all by itself), try not to use the employers resources to do so.
That means: keep the bits off their infrastructure. ALL of it.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
To use a cliché, I'd be rich if I had a nickel for every time I've seen an employee frantically clear his or her browser cache or send an email then delete it from the sent items folder. Surprise! The device on your desktop is not the center of the universe! Maybe abiding by policies and staying away from any shady dealings is a better way to cover your ass.
The naive emails were being exchanged for the purpose of starting an investment company! would you give a nickle to a banker or broker who was that clueless?
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.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.