Except that many employees probably keep a CYA cache of old emails, which will be discoverable despite whatever self-serving policy the company has made.
Yes, I do that myself, as a matter of fact. Interestingly enough, the policy update was sent via email.. so the question is, is it still valid?:-)
I happen to work for a
large organization (75,000 employees) that has a 60 day email rentention policy.
Any items left in your Inbox or any other server-based mail folders are deleted if they are over 60 days old. Plus there is a "policy" that states that the emails are "no longer valid" after 60 days.
The reasoning behind this, I was told, was so that the company could not be sued or have other legal action taken against them for an email written more than two months ago.
Sure makes completing really large projects difficult, though. I can only remember things for 8 weeks!
I don't seriously see this happening in government though. Does the judge mean to apply this to Criminal cases? Civil ones?
I'm not sure I agree with the implications that either Love or Slashdot are making.
While I agree that the statement of her suit is amusing / entertaining, is she really entitled to part of the profits that Universal has "lossed" as a result of MP3.com's misuse?
I thought the entertainment publishing model worked as follows: Universal cuts her a check for a gazillion dollars in advanced based on how they think the album would sell. She goes out and lives it up while they market and mass produce the album.
Therefore, lost revenues only hurt Universal and not Courtney Love (in the short term, anyway)... she's already got her "slice of the pie."
sigh Once again we have someone trying to capitolize on what I call the disappearing information paradox.
You can't give someone access to information without giving her the ability to manipulate that information in some way. (Aside from terminating the recepient, which would definitely affect your customer loyalty factor, not to mention squelching any repeat business.)
DVDs failed at this with CSS
Sony failed at this with the Minidisk "Do not copy" bit.
DIVX... well, 'nough said.
VHS Macrovision
The list goes on and on, from movies and music, to email and "read once and destroy" messages. If you present information to someone, they can recreate it. Period. Preventing that is not within the realm of current technology, no matter what type of encryption/timestamping/client-side security you put on it. It will be reverse engineered and automated within hours.
As we say in the south- "You can't un-ring a bell!"
I highly recommend projects based on the Basic Stamp line of products from Parallax.
These microcontrollers are very easy to interface with, program, and use in small battery operated projects. You can build everything from environmental sensors to light controllers with them.
The cost may be a little high for start up (I think the programming kit runs around $100) but they probably offer educational institution discounts.
Using these devices you can learn digital logic basics, system logic design, simple programming logic, or any combination of skills depending on the application you have in mind for them.
"Stego!" the masses scream. While stegonography is a very interesting technology, it can be extremely dangerous. It tends to lull the communicators into a false sense of security.
Too many images floating back and forth, or accidently using an image thats available elsewhere (so the oppressor can do a comparason and determine that stego is being used) and the opposition is likely to use what I believe Bruce Schneier termed "Rubber Hose Cryptography"... That is where they get a rubber hose and beat the key (or the message) out of you.
With stego, deniability becomes the most important aspect, that that a much harder to measure factor.
Hopefully, one day, anonymous communications mechanisms like Zero Knowledge's Freedom system will become common enough that we can all find solace somewhere.
That serving web hits is a pretty lightweight thing to do.
Oh please. I agree with your points, except this one. Serving web hits for a major Internet site is not in any way a "lightweight thing to do."
By major internet site I mean the type of thing that hundreds of thousands of users have as their default home page and millions view every day.. Not your ISP web hosting site- your dual-T3 redundant, backed up by load balancing and cacheing, monitored by a very large engineering team 24 hours a day type of site.
These types of sites are usually hosted on a bank of Sun E450-type machines.. enough to fill a moderate sized room. Seeing Linux being trusted to this type of thing is a major accomplishment.
I feel I can say this due to being part of the engineering team for a website that itself draws over 8 million hits a day... and I can only imagine how much busier weather.com must be.
I think the external model is more useful, as most users already have keyboards and would notice a change.
It would a bitch to set up with a laptop, though. Software is probably more practical there.
Remember: If this company were based in the U.S.A. they would have been raided and shut down under the same laws Ramsey Electronics was. I'm sure the g'bment would love to confiscate a bunch of these puppies!
First off, complete privacy and complete freedom are mutually exclusive. Every idealist wants the freedom to do whatever they want, the privacy for no one to know about it, and security from everyone else. Is it not blatenly obvious to everyone how impossible this formula is?
You can either have (1) Freedom to do whatever you want, subject to the visibility and scrutiny of others (no privacy)
(2) Freedom to do whatever you want in complete privacy, with the risk of people using the combination to commit crime and take advatange of you or (3) No freedom whatsoever, total privacy, and total security. (Anyone caught doing something wrong is punished)
For those of you who say learn the technology tell me you already knew about the Reliant Digital Intercept System being sold to law enforement agencies by Comverse Infosys. This thing has the ability to monitor multiple simultaneous voice conversations and automatically flag and record only "interesting" calls, based on voice recognition and pattern matching. Pretty scary!
Yeah.. I've seen a couple also- but I'm not sure I've ever seen a "total" lunar eclipse- Isn't that what is supposed to make this one so rare? Imagine, however, seeing it from the surface of the MOON... A solar eclipse caused by the Earth, that would have to be pretty. (albeit a lot more common...) I'll be down here waving back!
Personally, I'm going to be on my back patio listening to "Low Red Moon" by Belly and staring into space.
Slashdot Mirror
(Actually, my cow-orker behind be just stated that it's actually probably a cult since it's not quite old enough to be a religion yet.)
- Some Id10t
Yes, I do that myself, as a matter of fact. Interestingly enough, the policy update was sent via email.. so the question is, is it still valid ? :-)
Any items left in your Inbox or any other server-based mail folders are deleted if they are over 60 days old. Plus there is a "policy" that states that the emails are "no longer valid" after 60 days.
The reasoning behind this, I was told, was so that the company could not be sued or have other legal action taken against them for an email written more than two months ago.
Sure makes completing really large projects difficult, though. I can only remember things for 8 weeks!
I don't seriously see this happening in government though. Does the judge mean to apply this to Criminal cases? Civil ones?
While I agree that the statement of her suit is amusing / entertaining, is she really entitled to part of the profits that Universal has "lossed" as a result of MP3.com's misuse?
I thought the entertainment publishing model worked as follows: Universal cuts her a check for a gazillion dollars in advanced based on how they think the album would sell. She goes out and lives it up while they market and mass produce the album.
Therefore, lost revenues only hurt Universal and not Courtney Love (in the short term, anyway)... she's already got her "slice of the pie."
Am I wrong in this assumption?
You can't give someone access to information without giving her the ability to manipulate that information in some way. (Aside from terminating the recepient, which would definitely affect your customer loyalty factor, not to mention squelching any repeat business.)
DVDs failed at this with CSS
Sony failed at this with the Minidisk "Do not copy" bit.
DIVX... well, 'nough said.
VHS Macrovision
The list goes on and on, from movies and music, to email and "read once and destroy" messages. If you present information to someone, they can recreate it. Period. Preventing that is not within the realm of current technology, no matter what type of encryption/timestamping/client-side security you put on it. It will be reverse engineered and automated within hours.
As we say in the south- "You can't un-ring a bell!"
These microcontrollers are very easy to interface with, program, and use in small battery operated projects. You can build everything from environmental sensors to light controllers with them.
The cost may be a little high for start up (I think the programming kit runs around $100) but they probably offer educational institution discounts.
Using these devices you can learn digital logic basics, system logic design, simple programming logic, or any combination of skills depending on the application you have in mind for them.
Good Luck!
Too many images floating back and forth, or accidently using an image thats available elsewhere (so the oppressor can do a comparason and determine that stego is being used) and the opposition is likely to use what I believe Bruce Schneier termed "Rubber Hose Cryptography"... That is where they get a rubber hose and beat the key (or the message) out of you.
With stego, deniability becomes the most important aspect, that that a much harder to measure factor.
Hopefully, one day, anonymous communications mechanisms like Zero Knowledge's Freedom system will become common enough that we can all find solace somewhere.
Oh please. I agree with your points, except this one. Serving web hits for a major Internet site is not in any way a "lightweight thing to do."
By major internet site I mean the type of thing that hundreds of thousands of users have as their default home page and millions view every day.. Not your ISP web hosting site- your dual-T3 redundant, backed up by load balancing and cacheing, monitored by a very large engineering team 24 hours a day type of site.
These types of sites are usually hosted on a bank of Sun E450-type machines.. enough to fill a moderate sized room. Seeing Linux being trusted to this type of thing is a major accomplishment.
I feel I can say this due to being part of the engineering team for a website that itself draws over 8 million hits a day... and I can only imagine how much busier weather.com must be.
What's more, the Lucent cards have an external antenna jack on the side of the card. Saves you a little work.
Before ripping a product apart with a dremel tool, check to see that you aren't re-inventing the wheel.
- Some Id10t
It would a bitch to set up with a laptop, though. Software is probably more practical there.
Remember: If this company were based in the U.S.A. they would have been raided and shut down under the same laws Ramsey Electronics was. I'm sure the g'bment would love to confiscate a bunch of these puppies!
You can either have
(1) Freedom to do whatever you want, subject to the visibility and scrutiny of others (no privacy)
(2) Freedom to do whatever you want in complete privacy, with the risk of people using the combination to commit crime and take advatange of you
or
(3) No freedom whatsoever, total privacy, and total security. (Anyone caught doing something wrong is punished)
For those of you who say learn the technology tell me you already knew about the Reliant Digital Intercept System being sold to law enforement agencies by Comverse Infosys. This thing has the ability to monitor multiple simultaneous voice conversations and automatically flag and record only "interesting" calls, based on voice recognition and pattern matching. Pretty scary!
Just my $.02...
Personally, I'm going to be on my back patio listening to "Low Red Moon" by Belly and staring into space.