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From: root@hobbes.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: News and Motss
Message-ID: <127@hobbes.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Mar-87 22:26:48 EST
Article-I.D.: hobbes.127
Posted: Tue Mar 10 22:26:48 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Mar-87 20:31:12 EST
References: <494@sw1e.UUCP>
Reply-To: root@hobbes.UUCP (John Plocher)
Organization: U of Wisconsin - Madison  Spanish Department
Lines: 39

+---- <494@sw1e.UUCP> (Tom Adams) ----
| Why do administrators have (or believe they do) a Right to read any
| file on a disk?  [...] Does a building administrator have a right
| to go through my briefcase because it rests on *his* floor?  What
| make "Greg"'s disk different?
+----

The big difference between Computer files and US-Mail, your briefcase,
and "Greg's disk" has to do with tangable personal property.  You own
the paper + envelope used for the letter, you own your briefcase;  you
do *not* own "Greg's disk" or [the administrator's/Company's] computer.

If you rent an apartment, you enter into a legal contract with the
building's owners which gives you certain rights - Privacy is one
of them.  Thus, the building adm *can not* enter/search your room
without a court order which overrides your privacy.

If you rent/lease/etc a computer system, you can (in your contract,
you do have this in writing, don't you?) try to include such things
as "My files MAY not be looked at by the sys-admin"; if you succeed,
great!

I'd guess that *right now* you don't have any such protection.  So,
you are in the same boat as someone who writes a note on a sheet of
paper and tapes it up in a corner of the boss's corkboard - Most people
won't have any reason to look at the note (after all, it isn't in
*their* office), and if the board is covered with 5000 other notes
one could gamble that this note might not get seen by the Boss.
But, since it is the Boss's *job* to be aware of what is happening on
her corkboard, she just *might* get around to reading the note.  To
argue that the note shouldn't be read by *anyone* is rather naive!

Switching back to computer files, follow these guidelines:

    1) Don't put anything on the computer which you *wouldn't* want your
       boss (or the whole company) to read.
    2) If you don't want others to read it, don't put it on the computer
    3) If you feel that you MUST put it on the computer, and you don't want
       anyone to read it, then by all means encrypt it so no one *can* read it!