Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    Bob,
    
    I've been told it is a firing offense, but I have no authority
    to back that up.
    
    Bonnie

    I'd say it is a firing offense.  It's invasion of privacy.  However, I
    have known system manglers who have done it outside DEC.  There was
    some blurb that came around DEC saying that system managers were being
    given the go-ahead to prod around certain people's accounts if they had
    just cause to believe there were any obscene jokes or the like in their
    accounts, but I still think it's a case of big-brotherism.  I never
    knew if it was true or not, though....
    
    -Jody
    

    Now how could you tell someone was poking around through your mail?
    Would it leave any evidence?
    
    -kristin

    This is really more a discussion for the HUMAN::DIGITAL conference.
    But from my understanding, corporate policy doesn't say anything
    specifically about the privacy of your files.  (I'm presuming Bob is
    talking about a privileged user on the same system overcoming the
    file protection to read the mail files - I'm not aware of any way
    that random people could do this across the network.)
    
    In my organization, the group manager has issued his own prohibition
    against reading other people's electronic mail (or other files)
    without permission, but this is not company wide.  One must keep in
    mind the notion that "your email" is residing on a system and network
    wholly owned by Digital Equipment Corporation.
    
    				Steve

    Re: .4
    
    A woman in my department was running a batch job and had noticed at
    that time that our systems manager was in her account - whether it was
    her mail account or what - I have no idea.
    
    -Lynn
    

    
    Well, if someone comes in through DECnet and accesses files with
    the fal object, ULTRIX logs it in /usr/spool/mqueue/syslog.
    
    It is possible for DECwindows mail under ULTRIX to fail to set the
    file protections appropriately in a users Mail directory.
    
    I asked because I am interested in people's views. An official policy
    statement would be found in the Orange book, I should think.
    

    
    
    What about people who hang out in your office and just happen to read
    what is on your screen??? I had this happen to me last week, the person
    happened to be one of my managers, he always has a habit of reaching
    for his appointment book, standing right over me, (breathing down my
    neck), and checking out what is on my screen!.. and when this happened
    I had a mail message on my screen about HIM from his manager.  Long
    story, but I think its really sickening when you can't have privacy in
    your own office.  My mail is my mail.  Right or wrong?  But I've
    noticed that being a secretary its almost like your office is the
    Public Hang-Out Office.  I've even had people listening to my personal
    calls.  But this very same person got very upset with me last week for
    going into his office and trying to find something 'work-related' in
    there.  He actually came right out and told me "I have no business in
    his office for ANYTHING".  I just get the feeling that because he is a
    manager he can get away with talking to his secretary like that, but if
    I made that same remark to him, then the **** would hit the FAN.

    
   
   > What about people who hang out in your office and just happen to read
   > what is on your screen??? I had this happen to me last week, the person
   > happened to be one of my managers, he always has a habit of reaching
   > for his appointment book, standing right over me, (breathing down my
   > neck), and checking out what is on my screen!.. and when this happened
    
    Don't let them! Either hit F4 key - which squirts a "Set-Up" screen
    over your screen (remove by pressing F4 again) - or back up a
    couple of screens.
    
    You should always "lock" your terminal when you're away from your desk
    too.
    
   >  My mail is my mail.  Right or wrong?  
    
    Well............
    Mail is a fabulous thing. It can feel very personal, very "close", and
    you can even form relationships using it. And DEC gives us a lot of
    leeway in using it for non-work related stuff.
    BUT...when all's said and done, "your" mail is on a network *owned*
    by Digital and the company has "owners rights"....
    
    How much privacy you expect at work is a good question.
    Personally I consider the whole of the work area as public domain and I
    don't leave anything non-work related *anywhere* where anyone else could 
    see it, read it, or use it. Not even in my desk drawers. Not even in
    *locked* desk drawers. I try not to make or take personal calls
    from work. This way you just avoid the whole issue of boundaries...
    Just my view. 
    
    'gail
    

    Re: .8 
    
    I agree with the fact regarding people reading your screen over your
    shoulder.......I had an incident happen yesterday where I had a 
    message from one employee here in our facility making a wise-crack
    about one of our manager's in a memo he had sent.......well, needeless
    to say, this manager of whom the employee chose to discuss over the
    system happened to be standing right behind me when I pulled the
    message up on screen.  This particular manager has a habit of reading
    other people's mail messages over their shoulders and due to
    yesterday's incident, his feelings ended up being hurt.
    
    In my opinion, hurt feeling's were well deserved on the managers part,
    and maybe this incident will teach him to mind his own business.
    
    Re: .9
    
    I looked up the policies and procedures on the mail system in the
    Orange Book - it is correct that the electronic mail system we use
    within Digital is owned and copyrighted by Digital, therefore giving
    Digital authority over the system.  System Managers also have 
    privilges to access others accounts as well for whatever reason....
    so my suggestion is that if you don't want others in your account
    reading your mail - don't put subjects of non-work related material
    in your system.
    
    -Lynn
    

    
    Let us suppose that the snooper is deliberatly snooping on their
    managers email...
    
    Does that make it any different..?
    

      Re.10> System managers..have privileges to access others accounts..
          >> for whatever reason..    (?)
    
        * From a newspaper's editorial page..
    
      [ Your boss is a jerk, you are fed up with a lot of things...
      and you want to let off a little steam. So you turn to your 
      trusty computer's terminal to let a few of your colleagues in
      on just what and who have you rankled.
      Well, you should be wise to think twice before sending a racy 
      electronic mail message about the boss to your colleagues..
    
      Many message writers wrongly assume that these computer-to-computer
      electronic cummunication systems are confidential. Right now, it
      appears they're not - 
      In the United States a class-action suit, filed last month by several
      employees against EPSON America Inc. of Torrance, Calif., claims the
      company's computer operations manager made printed copies of all
      electronic mail sent and received by 700 EPSON workers.
      *Feeling like reading others =email= this month ?
      The U.S. suit claims such snooping violates wiretap laws. ]
                                            (The Montreal Gazette Aug.28th 1990)
          Any further info on this law suit ? Anyone in California ?

    Re: .13
    
    I see no merit in such a suit, but then judges and juries don't
    always do what seems to make sense to me.
    
    I believe (I can't get at VTX ORANGEBOOK at this time) that there
    do exist corporate policies against using the network for
    unauthorized access to systems.  This wouldn't cover a system
    manager looking at files on her own system.  But as I said, various
    organizations may have their own rules about that.  At least on VMS,
    it's not possible for random unprivileged users to read other
    users' mail messages, unless the user or the system manager has done
    something very stupid.
    
    				Steve

	I've seen at least one memo stating that your account is considered
as personal as your desk and no one should be looking at its contents
without your permission.  I'm not sure where I saw it, and it was some time
ago, but it's the rule I enforced when I was a system manager.

	I've told more than one person "reading someone else's screen
without being directed towards it is rude."  I sit facing the door, with my
screen visible only to me.  If I want someone to read what's on my screen,
I swivel the monitor so they can read.

					--D

    I automatically darken my screen as soon as someone enters my cub...
    that way I don't have to worry about if they are the snoopy type
    or not.   I had one manager ask me why I darkened the screen and
    I told him that some of the mail and such I receive is related to
    personal conversations envolving notes... since digital approves
    noting (according to the Orangebook) the mail I receive in reference
    to them is legal so long as I don't allow it to interrupt my work
    schedule.  (Which I don't)... normally when viewing mail I flash
    through each piece figure out which are "personal" and which are
    business and file the personal ones for better reading during breaks
    or free time when I'm not doing anything.  He liked the answer and
    that was the end it.
    
    Anyhow, the point is... if you just either darken your screen or
    wipe it when someone enters your cube.... then you don't have to
    worry about it.  If you are in a public place (such as a secretarial
    cube) then be aware of the people behind you and don't be afraid
    to tell them that what you are reading is confidential, then blank
    the screen... works for me, and saves a lot of embarrassement.
    
    Skip

     Re.14> I see no merit in such a suit...    (?)
    
     Re.15> I've seen at least one memo stating that your account is considered
          > as personal as your desk and no one should be looking into its
          > contents without your permission..
    
    Meaning - different states/regions/provinces different laws & regulations? 
    The EPSON case was filed in California, perhaps the same laws do not
    apply in Conn.Tenn.NH.Alt... ?
    

mike z,

>	At the MAIL> prompt, pressing PF4 will erase the screen.

Thanks. 
I have been here for almost four years AND NEVER NOTICED THAT!
golly gee whiz sheeeze  :)

Re: .-1

	Gee, I'll bet you never read the manual - right? ;-)

						--D

    You _get_ manuals ??!
    
    If it ain't in online help we get diddly

Re: .21

The command is ERASE.  It is in the on-line HELP and also in the KEYPAD
help.  But certainly it's not something that people would go looking for.

			Steve

    RE - a couple
    
    Not everyone gets the benefit of a manual and training.  The only
    training I received when I first got my account was on All-In-One...
    I had to find Notes and VMS Mail on my own and teach myself how
    to use it.  Thanks to the people like Don Casey (another self taught
    noter) and my girlfriend I eventually learned how to work in Mail
    and notes instead of just All-In-One.  I'm sure there are a LOT
    of noters who never had the benifit of a manual.
    
    BTW if you have a spare I'd love to read it sometime... who knows...
    I may discover something I don't know how to do yet.  
    
    Skip

> .last four

ah ... duh ... I had two or three manuals that dealt with mail,
but if I saw ERASE, it didn't imprint.  After all, I read the
manuals week 1 thru 10 and it took a 20 to 30 weeks before I
had stuff worth an ERASE function. :)

PLUS I spent a lot of my manual time desparately trying to find 
how come ... when typing a mail message with the default mail
editor, every now and then I'd get a wild error message and
my message would be lost!

Turns out, the text was wrapping -- which looked like a word
processor to my new MAIL eye -- but I was actually typing into 
a 512-character buffer. So typing the 513th character 
killed my message and up popped something looking like 
DCL-%BANG-%BANG. Who the hell knew what that meant!!!

People kept giving me complex fixes that didn't work.
Luckily, I finally asked someone why they kept hitting
Return to wrap and we realized!   

duh ... Ralph ... uh ... Ethel ... Meps ... Meigs?  That's it! Meigs  

    
    I was always told that prived users reading other's mail with out
    a good reason ended in termination.
    
    System manager's don't usually have time to read other's mail
    (but on a small system, who knows). I used to have to go into
    people's mail files sometimes to solve problems. Although I never read
    an entire mail message on purpose, I used to see some personal stuff.
    My advise is don't ever keep anything you wouldn't want anyone else
    to see.
    
    Oh, regarding notes, I do know of a DEC employee who got a written
    warning for spending too much time in notes. Someone complained about 
    a note that had been written by this person. The manager had a system
    manager see how much time (during work hours) were spent in notes, and
    it was way too much.
    
    Guy
    

    re .26
    
    I'm a system manager, and I've been asked how much time some folks
    spend in notes during work hours.  You need to be careful here, because
    elapsed time can be very large, while actual reading time is very
    small.  A person could be doing work at one terminal, and in notes on
    a second terminal, just reading while they're waiting for some work to
    complete, yet the elapsed notes time alone wouldn't take this into
    consideration.  The CPU time should be taken into consideration, as
    well. 

    
    I used to know someone who spent a lot of time in notes and had
    problems with people on the job.  Because his job required
    participation in a few different notesfiles, they couldn't just pull up
    CPU time spent in "notes".  People actually found replies by this
    person in several nonwork conferences at all times of the day, every day and
    let it be known that they "knew" and the manager let it be known that
    he "knew".  This persons non-work related noting time went way down after
    that but if he had been reading all day and never writing, it was said it
    would have been hard to pinpoint that his noting was non work related.
    I think the flagrant abuse of notes angered his group enough to have
    them really go after him.    
    
    I use several technical notesfiles all day and very often keep one
    conference open on a terminal all day long.  Although my manager knows
    about this because I've mentioned it in status reports, if he didn't
    know it would seem unfair if someone was just calculating how much time
    I spent in notes without knowing what it was I was doing.  But I guess
    they only watch you that closely if you're having a performance
    problem.   Non work related notesfiles are nice for breathers and
    breaks but they shouldn't be abused nor should people who use work related
    notesfiles need to fear the notes police are about to knock on the
    door.
    
    Like the previous reply stated you have to be careful when looking to
    see what you're looking at.  I think these days we have a tendency to
    look for who is doing what and while there is abuse of notesfiles, and
    I'm one person who tends to have that on my list of things of "whats
    wrong with this place" when I get going, there is a lot of networking
    and resourcing being done by responsible people through notesfiles too.
    (and *those* people do non-work related notesfiles at 9:30 at night
    ;-) )
    
    Did I just get myself down a rathole?  (I just never seem to be able to
    resist when "time spent in notes" is mentioned.  Sorry about that.)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    
    
    I'll skill the replies and simply say that I personally know
    someone that was fired from digital for reading someone's mail.
    
    It is traceable or at least can be made so. 
    

    Hmmm... ya see the managers have the right to observe computer log in 
    time.  If you have a complaint logged against you in personal IS can 
    open you account to observe "miss use" of the account.  
    
    To enter someone elses account without permission though... say like 
    me going into your account... that's illegal... and would get me fired.
    
    But the issue here I think is reading soemone's mail via other
    sources... i.e. "over the shoulder".
    
    Skip

    
    no, I had probing of someones mailbox files, by means
    of the OS, in mind...