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."

Comments

Can I be the first to say "duh"?

[the_mad_poster]

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...

Re:Can I be the first to say "duh"?

[Bios_Hakr]

The thing about USian corporate culture is that even if you are technicaly right, you are still wrong. Your boss could be setting baby kittens on fire and you could be the whistleblower that puts him away. The next week, you get fired for abusing the copy machine.

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.

No pity, no new violation

[dreamt]

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.

Re:gratitude

[jridley]

I don't condone what they did, but there's no loyalty on EITHER side. Sure they write you a check, but most employers won't think twice about firing you if it suits their financial interest. If you're not getting loyalty, you tend not to give it back.
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...

[rah1420]

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.)

Re:gratitude

[silverbax]

"I guess loyalty has gone the same way as traditional family values and faith in God."

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.

Silly Rabbits should not start businesses

[museumpeace]

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.