Anyone know of a email program my tech person at work can't read or see what I am doing?

Question

I work in an office with about 50 people. I have worked in larger settings where accessing your email, chatting & playing online games was not a big deal as long as your work was complete.

Now at this new office, I hear of people getting questioned about being on gmail too much or sending too many private emails. This leads me to believe that the tech person can actually read these emails as well.

While I don't intend to excessively check my email, I would like to know if there is a program where I can check my mail but the tech lady wouldn't know? Is there an encrypted mail that can be used? What about encrypted chat? And if I am on these sites do you think she going to be highly suspicious?

Answer 1

Hey Dudette,

Speaking as a tech person, yes, your tech can read your email if he/she is worth their salt. In fact, ANYBODY can read your email.

If you are running into this problem at work, your job is at stake. Your job is YOUR JOB. Do your play stuff at home. Work is not your private time. Much like you would not have sex on your desk for everyone to see, don't do your personal computer work at WORK.

About encryption, you would have to purchase or get a free SSL certificate to encrypt your email. My guess is that I am already talking over your head so I won't go there.

For the most part, you are toast. I have escorted a few people out of work because of doing personal stuff when they should have been doing their job.

Now, you may have this going for you. Does the place you work have any written policy concerning computer usage? If not, you are probably safe. If push came to shove, and you were let go without them having anything in writing concerning the use of computers for personal reasons, you probably have a leg to stand on. However, courts have already ruled that business computers, the data transmitted and received, are all business property. They can get in trouble for the things that you do with it, therefore they basically own everything you do.

Go home, do your email and chat there.

Personally, while I can read everybody's email, I do not care to. The ONLY reason I ever do it is for legal reasons. If we have an employee stealing, cheating, or not getting their work done, we have all rights to find out why. Most companies will track and even do screen captures for 8 hours a day to figure out what is going on with employees.

Good luck.

Tom

Answer 2

Depending on the sophistication of your network administrator, there's very little you can do. Since all the data is flowing over the network, a well placed monitoring program will be able to see what you're doing.

You could try a web anonymizer like tor:
http://tor.eff.org/

However, be forewarned! Tor and other tools like it do leave signatures that can be seen. So while the admins might not know exactly what you're up to, they will see that you're using a smokescreen. Also, at some places having this sort of software is a red flag and can get you in trouble.

Since you're in a small office, I'd try making the case for a more reasonable network use policy.

Best of luck!

Answer 3

New Federal regulations require companies to track and store all electronic medium for possible litagation purposes.

Dec 1, 12:26 AM (ET)

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. companies will need to keep track of all the e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees thanks to new federal rules that go into effect Friday, legal experts say.

The rules, approved by the Supreme Court in April, require companies and other entities involved in federal litigation to produce "electronically stored information" as part of the discovery process, when evidence is shared by both sides before a trial.

The change makes it more important for companies to know what electronic information they have and where. Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely copies over a backup computer tape could be committing the equivalent of "virtual shredding," said Alvin F. Lindsay, a partner at Hogan & Hartson LLP and expert on technology and litigation.

Answer 4

because of the fact that they're offering it for you, you're utilising their components and as a result it isn't any longer your email, so no. they are in a position to do notwithstanding they choose. till you're internet hosting your very own email server, the enterprise that owns it has jurisdiction. EDIT: additionally, Max, you spelled "plenty" incorrect

Answer 5

access it through a proxy like www.proxyhttps.com. if your using firefox go to here http://www.proxy4free.com/page1.html and use the details it gives you. to input this data in firefox go to options then advanced then network then settings and put in the data. if you want to just access a site normally use the proxy site i showed you. youtube and some other does not work through proxies and most will take longer to load.

Answer 6

I wish I knew

Answer 7

maybe you can download yahoo messanger or find a private chatroom.