This is why HTML email is evil.

[Tim May]

At 10:37 AM -0500 12/13/00, sunder wrote:
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/15423.html
>
>"For a very sweet dirty trick along those lines, one could embed a 
>link to a porn picture on-line, resized at 1x1 so it's invisible
>in the e-mail. Network logs will show that a given employee 
>requested, say, preteen_bestial.gif from
>www.loathsome-sex-offenders.com. Even better, if the company has 
>spyware in place, the jack-booted network thugs won't even have to
>be notified by the trickster before grassing him out to senior management."
>

Practically speaking, an employee who had only this 1x1 tracking pic 
in his e-mail could probably make a good defense. Unless his employer 
was looking for _any_ excuse to fire him, the lack of an actual, 
viewable picture or message from him acknowledging the 
content...probably would get him off the hook.

On the other hand, the U.S. is moving toward having schools and 
employers adopt mechanistic "zero tolerance" policies. In recent 
cases, merely having a tiny GIF of a gun is enough to have a child 
suspended and parents sentenced to "counseling."

(Note that "counseling" and "political re-education" are the same thing.)

In a free society, free economy, then employers and employees are 
much more flexible. A solid contributor would not be fired for 
something so trivial as having a porn picture embedded in some minor 
way. Hell, a solid contributor probably wouldn't be fired even for 
sending MPEG porn movies to his buddies!

But we are not in a free society, are we? We are in a legal 
environment where some on-the-rag Personnel Dept. bimbo can decide to 
"make an example" of some shlub engineer who is caught clicking on 
Danni's Hot Box after work. The shlub's manager probably can't do 
anything except beg that both he and his subordinate be sent to 6 
weeks of sensitivity training. If the bitch is feeling in control, 
she may assent to this. If not, or if the company fears being sued by 
offended employees or others, the shlub will be fired and the manager 
alone will be sent in for an ideological tune-up.

The Thought Policeman Inside.


--Tim May

-- 
(This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the
election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)