Email in work

lolli

Hi

I work for a large company. Lately my friend has been emailing me a lot of personal stuff. We received an email in work saying that they were monitoring emails and internet usage. I was just wondering can they actually read the emails we send to each other.

I asked the I.T department one person told me they can see them and another told me they cant. So i'm just wondering if anyone knows.

Thanks

Karoma

Yes. They can. Whether they'd be bothered...

Sending you "person stuff", eh? I thought one could only post semen via snail mail... Time to impregnate some porn-star..! \o/

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Yup, they can see everything you send on the corporate network and they can look at every site you view on company computers.

lolli

Sorry PersonAL

God thats quite scary

Saruman

It depends obviously on the technology they are using. If its a big multinational then i would say they are using Exchange so yes they can not only see what emails you get, they can see your inbox and anything you have deleted too even if you empty your deleted items.
They can only see what websites you visit if they use a proxy server or if their firewall has usage logging.

Anyway answer to your question is yes.
So if its so important to get private email messages you could encrypt them which would raise alarm bells if they checked... Or use gmail or something which they cant check. They would know you use gmail but not what your emails say.

lolli

i work in a government office.

I thought once i had deleted everything it would be ok.

Do you know how far back they can see these emails?

I'm quite worried as we have been emailing each other within in the office.

"i wish the guy beside would drop dead or at least shower" you know that kind of stuff

faceman

What do you mean by personal stuff? Personal as in personal business or personal as in potentially illegal?

As its bein pointed out they have access to read your emails but if its a large company then the likelihood of them reading it is zilch if your mailbox is harmless. The mail filtering solftware is probably only picking up on non work related attachments.

as for internet usage, you can easily change your internet settings yourself so that you bypass the proxy server. But you should have no reason to do this anyway!

lolli

personal as in bitching about bosses............that being the worst really

Saruman

Well if they are using exchange server as they probably are... then YOU can even recover your deleted mails. Cant remember the option but under tools or actions or something there is a recover deleted emails option... again only in exchange.

lolli

oooh god!

faceman

lolli wrote:

personal as in bitching about bosses............that being the worst really

not a good idea mate!

zAbbo

not a good idea, emails (even deleted ones) are kept and are accessible by management if required.

How difficult would it be to setup a personal email address, and access it during your lunch if you wanted.

Not 100% safe either, as all information passed through your network could be logged or accessed by IT Dept.

faceman

zabbo wrote:

How difficult would it be to setup a personal email address, and access it during your lunch if you wanted.

INterestingly alot of multinationals block access to webmail accounts which is shoite. Fortunaately i access my webmail on my mobile!

lolli

i know now.... I've learned my lesson. i just hope they wont fire me!!!!

Thanks guys

lolli

all private email sites like gmail and hotmail are blocked

trout

lolli wrote:

all private email sites like gmail and hotmail are blocked

Seems that would indicate your web access is logged, filtered and monitored ... with filtering technology at the web proxy or external firewall layers.

All of the commercial web filters I have seen are bundled with reporting tools which can/will list details of every single element of every single web page hit by every single workstation/user in your organisation ... along with trends and categories of sites visited (sports, entertainment, auctions, games, gambling etc. etc.) This is served by a database fed by the web filter or more likely the web proxy/firewall chain.

You can be sure your email details are also subject to some level of scrutiny.

While it is quite unlikely that other people are reading your emails casually, there will be IT support people in your organisation who have the ability to read all your mails, or enable your management line to read all your mails if they so desire. There is also emerging technology which scans attachments to emails gauging and reporting on the amount of flesh tones in any documents. The same firewall trending/reporting technologies as above can also monitor details of internet mails into and out of every single mailbox... including the content!

The bottom line is this ... nothing you do on a work PC should be considered private ... all of your activity can be tracked, analysed and reported on.

My advice .. Don't say anything in a mail that you wouldn't say to someone's face! Ditch the bitching.

Snowbat

Unless your employer has a published policy on monitoring emails, you have a reasonable expectation to privacy. Even with such a policy in place, an employer needs to follow Data Protection guidelines:
http://www.dataprotection.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=208

In the absence of a clear policy, employees may be assumed to have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace.

jimmycrackcorm

Snowbat wrote:

Unless your employer has a published policy on monitoring emails, you have a reasonable expectation to privacy. Even with such a policy in place, an employer needs to follow Data Protection guidelines:
http://www.dataprotection.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=208

I recall a employee email usage dismisal court case a few years back where that wasn't the case. The court found that the employee had no right to utilise business internet resources for private use.

delta_bravo

lolli wrote:

i know now.... I've learned my lesson. i just hope they wont fire me!!!!

Thanks guys

Didnt you say you worked for the government? Youre never gonna get fired:)

quaidox

we have lotus domino servers in work and i can open everybodys email databases, being the admin n all. couldn't be arsed tho, too busy for that type of messing. could be fun tho ;>>