> They just showed up. They sent the same banal workplace emails you send every day
Yeah, no, I have a bit of a problem with this. There is a lot of stuff coming out of this hack that should never, ever have been on corporate IT systems in the first place. Stuff that doesn't come out of regular HR data where people should have a reasonably expectation of privacy and security, but stuff people have put there themselves.
And I don't think this should ever be considered normal behavior, to use corporate IT systems to store such private data.
Yes, these people are victims, but I think it sends the wrong message to say that their own role in this was completely normal behavior. It should be possible to be critical of this without drifting into blaming the victim territory, and I'm kind of missing that from the whole Sony hack discussion.
I had an internship at a company where all email was scanned, labeled, and encrypted based on the type of content in the email. Access to email was restricted when not using the corporate network. The information policy was strictly enforced; no personal emails on the network, except when work is affected (ex: "my relative is getting married, so I'll miss the meeting"). The net effect of the company's measures would have protected employees from the situation Sony Pictures employees find themselves in; unfortunately most companies are not so stringent, so they are vulnerable like Sony Pictures.
I think that, yes, people should not expect privacy on a corporate network, and yes, people should distinguish corporate from private email. However, the employee's attitude is impacted by the corporate attitude, and many companies are not nearly as strict as they should be with information policy.
Yeah, no, I have a bit of a problem with this. There is a lot of stuff coming out of this hack that should never, ever have been on corporate IT systems in the first place. Stuff that doesn't come out of regular HR data where people should have a reasonably expectation of privacy and security, but stuff people have put there themselves.
And I don't think this should ever be considered normal behavior, to use corporate IT systems to store such private data.
Yes, these people are victims, but I think it sends the wrong message to say that their own role in this was completely normal behavior. It should be possible to be critical of this without drifting into blaming the victim territory, and I'm kind of missing that from the whole Sony hack discussion.