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UK organisation desperate to control email

someone | 26.02.2004 13:57 | Repression

At least one UK organisation (a popular science publisher)
is participating in a desperate attempt to stop "leaks"
of information by email. I received a tag in a private email about a
perfectly non-secret subject which has extremely threatening
language. Suggested antidote: respond publicly without quoting the content.

I just got this today in an email from a science publisher, at the end
of an email which is certainly not about anything terribly confidential:

[message removed]

> ============================ DISCLAIMER =============================
> This message is intended only for the use of the person(s)
> (\"Intended Recipient\") to whom it is addressed. It may contain
> information, which is privileged and confidential. Accordingly
> any dissemination, distribution, copying or other use of this
> message or any of its content by any person other than the Intended
> Recipient may constitute a breach of civil or criminal law and is
> strictly prohibited. If you are not the Intended Recipient, please
> contact the sender as soon as possible.
>
> Reed Business Information Ltd. and its subsidiary companies
> Tel: +44 (0)20 8652 3500
>
> =======================================================================

Thought it might be interesting for people who analyse this sort of Orwellian
stuff.

My own strategy is to respond on a publicly archived list (like most indymedia
lists), but without quoting the content. If the original sender doesn't want
to switch to a public list, tough. If you want to keep up the conversation,
it's possible to keep replying publicly to each private reply, but without quoting
the "secret" content. If readers are going to "reverse engineer" your public
replies to guess what the secret replies were, that's not your responsibility.

Sometimes the corresponder asks not to send to the list - just ignore them and
continue (if you think the theme is public) - as long as you don't quote the content
and as long as the organisation has no particular wish to get into heavy legal proceedings,
there should be very little legal danger.

someone

Comments

Display the following 4 comments

  1. Under what powers? — Jynx
  2. It's not as sinister as it seems — Afinkawan
  3. Afinkawan... — Jynx
  4. I know — Afinkawan