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purplecthulhu at 10:46am on 01/03/2003
purplecthulhu at 10:46am on 01/03/2003Various people, including slashdot and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
puppytown have reported the leaked email from author Laurie Garrett to her friends concerning her experiences at the World Economic Forum in Davos. There's now a rather interesting commentry on this available at LawMeme which also provides a very useful summary of the story so far.
puppytown have reported the leaked email from author Laurie Garrett to her friends concerning her experiences at the World Economic Forum in Davos. There's now a rather interesting commentry on this available at LawMeme which also provides a very useful summary of the story so far.
awake
(no subject)
Maybe I've been on mailing lists and Usenet too long. I've always assumed that the stuff I put down would be leaked. I encrypt the stuff I'm iffy about (and acknowledge that I'm not taking sufficient precautions even there, actually, if I wanted to be really paranoid).
How could anyone engage in regular e-mail use much less publishing for a newspaper and not come to the conclusion that sensitive, useful, interesting information always finds a way out unless specific precautions are taken? At the very least an informal statement at the beginning to keep the message private.
I think that's the only thing about the whole incident that really struck me. I'm concerned that a talented, bright journalist has that level of ignorance about interpersonal communications (much less electronic).
I hear what you're saying ...
She's complaining that *her friends* helped to tell the entire world about her private emails. Do you have a disclaimer on all of your email saying "please don't forward me"?
And various people in the chain seem to have topped and tailed her email so even if there was a disclaimer it would have been "lost".
I hear both sides, but I'm not sure if both sides can hear the other ;)
Re: I hear what you're saying ...
But this is my point. My assumption is that the e-mail may be forwarded, misdirected, quoted out of context, stolen, snooped, deleted outside my control unless I take specific steps, the minimum of which would be a disclaimer. Her assumption appears to be that these things won't happen unless she asks them to. So, no, I don't put disclaimers on all my e-mail, but I understand the consequences.
Again, this may speak to how long I've been on the 'net and specifically how long I've been a sys admin. What if none of her friends had been responsible for the forwarding, but one of the addresses she typed in from the hotel was in error? The sys admin glances through another routine bounced message and sees something interesting and forwards it without the names attached. The message may be unlikely to be seen at a large company or ISP, but not for a small department (under a hundred staff) with its own mail server. What I'm saying is that she has preconceived notions about privacy that don't mesh well with the real world.
But lots of people have this brand of misconception so I'm not very surprised by it. What surprises me more is her response of curtailing the use of e-mail. Now maybe I'm not paranoid enough (possible) and she handles such sensitive material day-to-day that this is the only reasonable response. Or maybe this is (as it appears to me) an unthinking twitch response of "Ow! Bad technology! Bad!" Would she stop talking to people on her cell phone if the local cell tower connected her mid-call to someone else while she was in a private (potentially embarrassing) conversation?
Re: I hear what you're saying ...
The trouble is that I can't see any sane way that she could stop this happening (except not sending the email). Unless you have some draconian Palladium system set up, once her friends have the email they can forward it to whoever they like. Even with this, if they can capture the screen then they can send it on.
Encryption is great, but it only protects against the bad guys. If you're sending email to your friends you want them to be able to read it, but if they can read it then they can forward it.
I think that she may be over-reacting, but I think your analogy is a bit too weak - I think a better one may be "my mobile phone spontaneously broadcasted pictures of me having sex to the entire world, hence I'm going to keep it turned off unless I need to make a call".
Re: I hear what you're saying ...
Complete thought looks more like:
Given the ease with which eavesdropping, accidental receipt, and misdirected transmission may occur,
And given the tendency of the community at large to assume that what we can do we (should, will, might, want to, etc.) do,
I find that it shows a lack of fore-thought for anyone to engage in electronic communication without both understanding the risks and explicitly stating one's intentions to at least the intended audience.
Her actions and, I believe, the actions of her friends showed the failure of the second point (intent). Her subsequent reaction showed the failure of the first (risk). The assumptions that lead up to these two points are self-evident to me. I am surprised by the extent to which they are not for other people who make extensive use of the same medium. But, as I said previously, I also realize that my view is coloured by my previous technical experience.
Anyway, that's probably enough of that. :-)
Re: I hear what you're saying ...
Thanks for the discussion - nice to be able to have a civilised conversation on the web).
regards
Hack