🚀 go-pugleaf

This topic started in news.misc, but seems more appropriate here.
Our story so far....

From article <KARL.90Jul31223452@mesquite.charcoal.com>, by karl_kleinpaste@charcoal.com:
> Richard.Banks@ohiont.fidonet.org writes:
>    How do not we know that system administrators on uucp machines are not
>    reading our mail as travels to its destination ?
>
> You don't; you trust that the postmasters between Hither and Yon are
> worthy of their position.  Pat McGregor/UMich took a survey on
> postmaster ethics, asking 130-odd postmasters, and getting 69
> responses.  A paper on the subject, "Averting One's Eyes -- Ethical
> approaches to Postmastering," is the result.  You can find a copy via
> ftp in tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/sendmail/postethics, or via uucp as
> osu-cis!~/sendmail/postethics.
>
> --karl

I don't even read news.misc but came across a reference to the paper
that someone forwarded to comp.archives (I love that group!) so I
grabbed the paper and read it.

As a former postmaster I am very interested in this subject.  I am
also disappointed to see the assumptions made from information obtained
in this survey.

Basically the paper says "we think everybody is pretty much honest."
But these results are based on only those responses from postmasters
honest to actually ANSWER the survey request!  There is a statement
that the author hope this doesn't slant the results... Not only does
it slant them, it makes them almost useless.

I have personally known several postmasters who took a look at mail
whenever they felt like it.  Some even went so far as to have hooks
in mailers to grab "interesting" messages.

Now before anybody calls for my head, I do *not* believe that this
is a majority or even a very signficant minority.  I have nothing
against postmasters, some of my best friends are postmasters.  ;-)
Hell, I was one (and still am from time to time).

But different people have different ideas about what a postmaster
should and should not do.  My idea is different than others' (I am
one of the strict privacy at all costs believers).  But if my mail
goes through a site where the postmaster doesn't play by the same
rules, then all bets are off.

I have seen places where the "company" takes the attitude that all
mail is business oriented and takes place on "their" equipment, 
therefore it all belongs to the company, therefore having a properly
designated person (i.e. postmaster) reading it is perfectly acceptable.
Blech.  But as long as the employees know those are the rules, then
OK, that's their choice.  And since (then and there) there was no
external access, that is ok for the rest of us.  But if they had been
connected and I, as an outside user, sent mail through there, expecting
it to be private, guess what?

As for the survey, unfortunately, there is no good way to get a good
cross-section of all postmasters (both with different levels of ethics
as well as different rules of confidentiality within their environment).
The ones who feel they are taking advantage of their position (i.e.
behaving in ways that might not be acceptable to some) aren't going to
respond.  So naturally the conclusion drawn will be that everything is
fine.

In practice, most places you send your mail will maintain the
confidentiality (i.e. it will pass through or go to its recipient
without being seen by others).  But it is misleading to conclude that 
there is nothing to really worry about.  It depends greatly on the
sensitivity of the information.

The user has the ability to encrypt and select the text of a message.
Anything that shouldn't be seen by eyes other than the recipient's
should be encrypted or sent another way.  Whether seen intentionally by
some snooping privileged user with nothing better to do, or accidently
by some busy postmaster during debuging of a faulty mailer, seen is seen.
Once the information is out, it doesn't really matter how it got there.

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King Ables                    Micro Electronics and Computer Technology Corp.
ables@mcc.com                 3500 W. Balcones Center Drive
+1 512 338 3749               Austin, TX  78759
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