Posted by octopusprime on July 15, 2006, at 12:41:20
In reply to Re: Privacy - Following up by posting v. babblemail » corafree, posted by Phillipa on July 13, 2006, at 21:47:15
Assume everything you post from work is readable by your employer.
Many companies use what is called a "proxy server" to access the WWW. This proxy server logs requests from clients (ie, you), fetches pages from the WWW, and returns them to you. Personally identifiable information (such as your network address) can be logged by the proxy server. Because the URLs on Dr. Bob's site refer to indivudal posts, it would then be fairly simple to tie you to your posts by reading the proxy server logs.
Even if your employer does not use a proxy server, there are other ways to monitor your web use. Dr. Bob's site is unencrypted. Your IT person can place a device on the network that logs all traffic to and from your computer. Messages to unencrypted websites can be viewed in plain text as they are transmitted over the network. So your posts can be read by your network administrator and traced back to you and your computer.
That said, many employers do not actively monitor network traffic or proxy server logs, unless they already know about a performance problem and are trying to gather evidence.
The best way to communicate while at work would be to use an encrypted web mail system and/or encrypted chat. gmail offers encrypted mail and chat. An encrypted web site starts with the prefix https:// (instead of http://), and you can see a little lock icon in the browser window.
poster:octopusprime
thread:666248
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/work/20060706/msgs/667277.html