On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 05:20:16PM -0700, Robert LeBlanc wrote:
>
> I'm not a lawer so I don't know all the details. I do think that US law does
> allow an employer or institution to do what they want with traffic on their
> network. I remember hearing that this is not true in Germany or was it the
> other way.

Whether or not it's currently legal, this behavior _should_ be illegal.
I'm not too surprised that Germany would deal with this better than the
US does; they tend to have much better privacy laws in general.


> In any case, if you want it secure, encrypt it. If you can't encrypt
> it and you are concerned about privacy, don't do it at your employer's
> place.

SMTP is an unfortunate situation because it is impossible to ensure that
it is encrypted from point to point.  Your recommendation to "not do it
at your employer's place" doesn't help in this case, either, because
it's impossible to communicate without unencrypted traffic going through
BYU's network, regardless of where in the world I am physically located.


> Sorry, I can't do anything about you feeling that your rights are
> being violated.

>From a technological standpoint, I know that I can't prevent
eavesdropping.  However, that doesn't make me any happier when it
actually happens.

Suppose someone puts their ear to your door and listens in on a private
or confidential conversation.  They may not be breaking any actual laws,
but it's still immoral and offensive.  You may know that your doors and
walls aren't soundproof, but that doesn't mean you should blame yourself
for their behavior.


-- 
Andrew McNabb
http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/
PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55  8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868
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