[Gllug] OT: Email disclaimers (was: WikiLeaks: Stop the crackdown - incredible response!)

[John Edwards]

On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 10:39:50AM +0000, Tethys wrote:
>> I'm confused ... where exactly do the Illuminati fit into all this again?
> 
> I'm equally confused... how does a 1 line response merit a 23 line
> signature? That's really falling down when it comes to hitting a
> sane signal to noise ratio...

It also includes a very badly worded legal statement.

It claims the email is confidential and should only be read by the
intended recipient (singular) without clearly saying who that it and
"access by any other person is not authorised." Even distributing or
storing it is "strictly prohibited".

This is a public mailing list, distributing is it's jobs. Anyone can
join so the recipients are many, unknown and could not be considered
as "intended". It will probably be stored on many different people's
computers until they read, and is also archived on the web and
viewable by anyone.

If it held any legal power then every member of gllug (or viewer of
the web archives) would have to delete the email and then phone the
Buhler Group. Are they fully staffed on a Saturday? How much storage
does their answer phone system have?

(I'm not suggesting anyone try that by the way).

Email disclaimers may have a purpose for some emails, but just
attaching them blindly or automatically without considering the
contents or recipients is just stupid.

By including this one on an email to a public mailing list the sender
has clearly violated his own email disclaimer. If it is part of the
company policy then he may be violating the policy. That is usually
part of the employment contract and so does have legal power.

So by including it the sender may have put his own job at risk.


A couple of links:
	http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/
	http://attrition.org/security/rants/z/disclaimers.html


ps. Including your name, email, address and phone numbers in an
email to a public mailing list with a web archive is also a great
way to get more spam and increase your chance of identity theft.


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|    John Edwards   Email: john at cornerstonelinux.co.uk    |
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