Privacy and ethics rules.

[The Backlash Cometh]

We were having a conversation at the dinner table and the subject came up about privacy rules and how companies are handling it. A few were IT people. The subject came up when I explained to someone on the table that when they send private e-mail to someone's government e-mail address, that it is public record, regardless of the topic discussed. Everything, including attachments are open for review. The person said, so what? I said, what if it's a photograph of you and someone else in a picture? What if anyone can get access to that public record and prints it for whatever reason. Who is legally responsible?

The consensus was from the IT person, that accessing information from employees accounts, either public or private is not illegal. But the legal responsibility would come if someone prints the information without permission.

Now, I had to pause, because I know that Florida's privacy rule basically state that you can't intentionally tape someone in a private area, but if someone were to come across a private phone conversation, per se, and gave a taping to the press, the press could get in trouble for printing the information without permission. So I applied that knowledge to the e-mail situation. If someone came across information putzying around with his IT job, and does nothing about it, it's not illegal? However, if they are intentionally data mining, what rule, exactly, do they break?

I'm asking because we already know that Google is doing this to some extent, keeping tabs of our searches, but they're not getting in trouble. I'm just wondering what everyone's take is on this? What is unethical and what is downright illegal, and what makes it illegal?

[bemildred]

1. The internet is not a private area, you HAVE NO PRIVACY on the web.

I'm not saying I approve, I'm just saying how it is. I'm an ex-IT person too. Privacy is an extra added feature on the web which you must add on you own via encryption, anonymous forwarders, TOR routing, P-to-P servers, and other methods. And if you are using your employers systems, you can and will be watched.

These days, you are lucky if you get privacy in your own home.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. That's what I figure.

The point is, you can assume someone is watching, but what stops every IT guru from printing all of our e-mails on his website? What makes THAT illegal? Why are we all in shock and horror that the government is spying on us, if it's really that easy?

[bean fidhleir]

3. Someone who intercepts your mail to another person and publishes it

has violated the copyright law, federally, and possibly some state and local laws against wiretapping or related offenses.

But that's cold satisfaction if what you wanted was not to have your mail snooped to being with.

GPG (GnuPG/Gnu Privacy Guard) is your friend.

[bemildred]

4. Nothing stops it but the fear of retribution.

As such, it is legal. The stuff belongs to the owners of the systems, in general, and if the owners want to go after him for unauthorized use of their material, they can and will. It's like DU, everything we post here belongs to DU, they own it once we post it, or at least they own the right to display it.

Generally it can be and is copied all over the web and nobody much cares, but if somebody cares, either the writer or DU can go after them for unauthorized use (commercial in particular) of stuff you don't own. That all rotates around the matter of ownership and fair use, which is a different matter from privacy.

I do not, FWIW, think whether you print something or not matters much unless there is a commercial aspect, money at stake somehow.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I don't think even DU has a right to change copyright rules, do they?

For instance, someone can't collect ideas from DU, then rush off to some think tank and call them their own, can they? They do have to give credit to where the idea came from, don't they?

I certainly understand the circulation of ideas, but, I think it's unethical, possibly illegal to pass off someone's ideas off as your own.

[bemildred]

6. Copyright must be asserted. nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. That's not what I've heard.

Copyright makes it easier to establish your case in court, but your words are yours from the moment you write them down. Proving you were the first, that's another story.

[bemildred]

8. I remember long discussions about this subject, how to post in public

places without putting your work in the public domain, or allowing it to be used by others for commercial purposes, stolen and re-branded so to speak. All sorts of elaborate copy-lefts and fancy signature lines were thought up and are still used to attempt to control how your words are used.

There is an issue with email because you can argue email is not a public statement.

Pragmatically this gets you nowhere unless someone borrows and reuses in a way that is noticeable and traceable. Stuff that spreads by osmosis you can't do much about, there is nobody to go after. Just ask the RIAA.

But in general, if your work is not marked, you are putting it in the public domain when you post it on the internet, and even if it is marked, you have your work cut out to keep control of it.

It is true that theoretically you own your work, but you have to assert control overtly OR keep it private to avoid placing it in the public domain, or that's my understanding. I am not a lawyer, and I do not play one on TV, so YMMV.

Edit: perhaps some lawyer person will chip in and clarify it for us.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. There are some creative lines I've come up with, particularly on unmoderated

usenet which I hope to someday use for commercial purposes. It would be interesting to be in a situation to find that someone else has pilfered those writings as their own. Certainly, I could see them using them since they were in the public domain, but then to copyright them and claim them as their own and deny me the right to use them, well, that would be an interesting situation. I don't see it happening because it would put an end to the exchange of ideas as we know it.

[bemildred]

10. That seems true to me.

Especially if you can still show it is your work, not theirs. The problem is that it is easy to change a bit here and there and say you thought it up yourself.

Now, if you collect all that stuff and publish it in a book, you can copyright the book, and so on. But it's a murky area.

I think the internet is a vast web of pilfering and re-use.