If I use hotmail at work is there any way that my company can read the contents of my emails?

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Answers

Big Brother Watching?

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Anything is possible but the the reality is that they probably don't....they could do it by having a keystroke logger installed on your machine (no chance) or using software which logs the contents of your IP packets, I know of one company who makes this software....

I seriously doubt it'd be used for you though man....chances are that you're 99.99999999% safe using hotmail...

Who are you sending dodgy porn to then? ;))

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Before I answer that.....What about here can they read the contents of this?

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

By the way thanks Gav!

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

they'd get as far as the team pick and stop

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

unfortunately Swifty, this thread is above the team pick one :-(

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

erm I mean below - sorry - it's been a long week

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Same things apply for here as hotmail....they're more likely to monitor the number of times you visit this site and hotmail than they are to actually bother recording and putting together what you wrote...

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

So if I slagged the company in an email in hotmail (which I wouldn't as I love it so much) or hypothetically was in correspondence with another firm. They wouldn't know.........

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Yes we would - hidden cameras all over the office taping everything.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

I have a feeling that under that new legislation that came in recently, they can monitor it, but they actually have to tell you that they are doing so if it is a medium you would expect to give you reasonable privacy, similarly with telephone calls you are receiving at work. Someone else may have more details on this as I know there were a lot of amendments to the final legislation.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

You are correct...like I said it is possible and the software does exist to do it but the reality is that no-one really uses that software but the most paranoid of all companies....if your company was really that paranoid then they'd just cut your net access...

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

My best one was when a manager came and asked if we could get old emails back from the previous 6 months. One of his guys was having an affair with a woman in another department. They had exchanged all sorts of dodgy emails, undying passion blah blah blah.

He had then decided to end it (his wife is vicious) and the jilted woman decided to get revenge. She had kept all the copies of the emails and very cleverly cut and pasted them to make it look like he had been the main culprit, she then printed them off and sent them to the wife !!!

The poor guy (he was a poor guy by this time) had deleted all his versions and couldn't show that it was a two way thing.

We did actually have the capability of getting the mails back, as it was Exchange on backed up servers, but I said we couldn't as I didn't really want to get us involved.

Hotmail stuff should be fairly safe I would have though. You just have to remember what can happen once it has left you though. Rememebr the girl all over the papers when she emailed about giving the guy a blow job and it was passed on.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Dear Sir - my boss is a woman

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

My company is paranoid - our database is worth millions - they definitely track email through the servers but would net based emails be checked?

By the way the company tried to screw ALL employees yesterday. A great place to work :-(

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

screw ALL employees, it makes mac's affair couple look positively tranquil

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Ha Ha Swifty.

Anyway try 1500 quid added (in a negative way) to our Profit and Loss sheet..........

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Kegsy...trust me they will not be looking at your hotmail....it's too much of a pain in the arse to monitor IP packets and then put them all together....

Dougs, I doubt our legislation would apply to Kegsy in Japan :))

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Gav, I doubt any legislation would apply to my employers here in Japan......

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

There are extra security protocols you can take to access your hotmail, but these can be used for skullduggery in other ways. Definately not for public message board consumption!

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Would that entail looking over both shoulders?

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

There are a couple of websites you can supposedly use as a gateway to access other sites without detection. 'Course I can't remember what they're called anymore. I quit using them cause it was a pain having to type in the addys I wanted every time, and so far I haven't worked anywhere that's been that paranoid.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001