Just Because You're Paranoid...

A recent federal ruling changes and clarifies requirements for companies to produce their e-mails (and other electronic data). According to an Associated Press story by Chrisopher S. Rugaber, "The new rules, which took effect Friday, require U.S. companies to keep better track of their employees' e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents in the event the companies are sued."

In this way, ePrize has really stayed ahead of the curve.

Of course, your Jabber conversations are open for reading, but how about your other IM programs? Yes, those too. Even when you're at home -- if you're connected to the VPN. Ask-Leo.com reports: "If your company has you establish a VPN or Virtual Private Network connection to the corporate network in order to access your email, while you have that VPN connection established then it's quite possible that your IM conversation is hitting the corporate servers, and possibly being logged."

The site lists some good rules of thumb:

• Use different IM accounts for your personal and business conversations. Keep the conversations to their appropriate topics - business or personal - and use only one at work, and the other at home. Don't mix.
• In any case, but especially on your business account, don't say anything you wouldn't want your boss to read. Or his boss. Or the entire IT department.
• Connect to your company's equipment from home only when you actually need it.

Keep it real.