There are a number of issues that need to be addressed when it comes to electronic mail usage. In the old days, it was easy to detect that some one opened your (mail) letter in an envelop because it would be easy to konw. At this current "(dot).com" information age, it is quite difficult with the availability of sophiscated tools to hide traces/marks/evidence of tampering/unauthorized access. There are certain personal issues and organizational issues concerning e-mail usage. These issues can affect both the security and privacy of the e-mail owners, and the organization at alarge. The organisation says we have to monitor your email usage to ensure security of the organization and see to it that you are ony in the working limitations; nothing else, BUT the worker/email owner is looking at privacy for his/her emails. It is therefore important to note and think about issues related to that. Below are some of the issues for discussions. Please give in your comments and ideas.
Electronic Mail Issues
Personal mail: (issues of confidentiality and
integrity)—Password sharing with boy/girl friends or wives/husbands etc… is it
an issue in families? What if you are a secret government agent e.g. CID, FBI,
etc.? What is your take on such issue? Is this an issue for the e-mail service provider or an issue for the email owner.
Email and the Business
World: If you are
in the business world, how do you manage and secure your mail? What if someone
unauthorized got to access your work mail. What can happen to Organization
trade secrets, financial data, organization trademarks etc.? How would you
advise workers and organization managers?
Viruses: Sent via mail in some sort of nice
attachment, your system will not be affected unless you download the
attachment. How many times have you been a victim? What would you advise email
users on this issue? how about protection? is it the service provider's poor security, the organization's bad security or the individual's lack of awareness and poor mail management skills?
Spam: This can really be a problem if not
avoided? Have you been a culprit before? What can you do to reduce on the spam mail?
How easy is it to design spam mail? Is it easy anyway? What does it take? is it something to fear? or you can do away with it.
Keystroke Loggers: Different organizations have their
email etiquette. One of the common one is to monitor email usage by worker,
where by there are some new software now days that monitor every key stroke an employee
makes on the key board regardless of whether or not the data is saved. Do you
think this is good? What could be good in this and what is the bad side of
this? It seems to be an issue of management and making sure that you only focus
on your work while in the organization. Is that fair enough or?
How about email
storage? Are you comfortable
with how the mails are stored? Do you any way know how emails are stored? Say for
example organization mail servers, or the common Gmail, yahoo, Hotmail etc.? Do
you think it secure enough? What makes you feel so? Does your mail still remain
private even when it is stored by a third party company? so who is the sole person(entity) in charge of the security of the stored mails?
Your comments and ideas are welcome.By
Fred Kaggwa
