North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Paul's Mailfrom (Was: IETF SMTP Working GroupProposal at smtpng.org)

  • From: Brad Knowles
  • Date: Tue Aug 27 20:13:14 2002

At 7:37 PM -0400 2002/08/27, Dean Anderson wrote:

 You worked at AOL?  This happens quite often. I've known of several admins
 who started reading email, checking terminal servers, and "disrupting"
 users who complained about the admins performance.  One admin wrote a
 script that reset the session of a "PITA" user every half hour.
I've heard of cases like this. I also know that the people I heard about were terminated with extreme prejudice, as soon as management got even a single whiff as to what they were doing. They took a really, really hard line against this kind of administrative abuse.

Before I left, they had started seriously cracking down on removing any additional access or permissions that someone may have had, if they couldn't prove that they needed it during the course of their job. I basically lost all access to the Stratus mainframes, because I didn't need it in order to perform my duties as the Sr. Internet Mail System Administrator.


No, I have a lot of my own bitches about AOL, mostly due to extremely questionable business practices that I saw while I was there. But this is an area where I don't think that much criticism can be rightly levelled at them.

 That is the number one problem, and its why consumer groups think they
 need tougher privacy laws.
I definitely support tougher privacy laws. But I don't think AOL would be likely to have much problems meeting or exceeding most enhanced privacy laws that I can think of.

--
Brad Knowles, <[email protected]>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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