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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rochester!cornell!vax1!george
From: george@vax1.ccs.cornell.edu (George R Boyce)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: law and data privacy
Message-ID: <345@vax1.ccs.cornell.edu>
Date: Tue, 21-Apr-87 18:16:41 EST
Article-I.D.: vax1.345
Posted: Tue Apr 21 18:16:41 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Apr-87 04:18:05 EST
References: <1128@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> <1065@epimass.UUCP> <5553@eddie.MIT.EDU> <5558@eddie.MIT.EDU> <1073@epimass.UUCP>
Reply-To: george@vax1.UUCP (George R Boyce)
Organization: Cornell Computer Services, Ithaca NY
Lines: 23

In article <1073@epimass.UUCP> jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) writes:
>...
>Foothead did not own any part of the machine he was using.  Ambar was
>using her root privs properly; I would do the same on my machine.

I probably would too, but I don't agree that it would be "right" or "legal".

>...
> The system administrator not only has the right, but the
>DUTY, to investigate in cases like this.  If she had come across any
>confidential information in the process of investigating, it would be
>her moral obligation not to reveal it to anyone else.  But if she
>came across incriminating evidence -- burn the dude!

The majority of system administrators probably agree with you. And a lot
of bosses think they can search an employee's desk and every high school
principal thinks they can search a student's locker. A number of state
governments disagree though... At Cornell the policy is that we can not
even ask that the user sign away their right to privacy. But then Cornell
is a little strange sometimes...

>- Joe Buck    {hplabs,ihnp4,sun,ames}!oliveb!epimass!jbuck
>	      seismo!epiwrl!epimass!jbuck  {pesnta,tymix,apple}!epimass!jbuck