Who would have thought we would have yet another affair to talk about in such a short time? What is it with 2009? Seems having a scandalous affair is the new "must-have" accessory!
Watching the Mark Sanford disappearance and subsequent revelation in his press conference yesterday has been fascinating for me on a couple levels. First, its fascinating that a state's governor would drop off the grid for so long then return and so candidly admit he was diddling his mistress the whole time, and second, reading said governor's very intimate emails with his lover in Argentina. It makes me feel voyeuristic and a little guilty. I can only imagine the embarrassment for the governor and his family. Sanford's cringe-inducing prose is something that will haunt him forever. That is, if his ego allows any kind of self-reflection.
My big question is, how in the world did the South Carolina paper, The State, get ahold of these juicy emails? And what can we learn from Sanford's humiliation that we can use for ourselves?
Let's start by going over some very basic reviews and understanding of the way online communication works and how it can come back to bite you. Basically, everything that modern communication tools have done to make it easier and faster to share information than ever before have also resulted in that information being more vulnerable to outside eyes than ever before. Whenever you write an email from any computer- whether at work or at home- it is sent with a signature line you never see- that signature is called an ISP address. ISP addresses basically tell people who know where to look for it from what computer the message was written on. Also- if you write an email from work or home short of wiping the entire hard drive clean- it is VERY difficult to truly delete a message. Don't let that cute little trashcan icon fool you.
What are your options when you want to send a message to a certain someone you don't want anyone to see? Well- the safest option is in person, but short of that gmail accounts are a good alternative. Gmail is a free email service via Google and allows you to login with an alias that adds an extra level of security and anonymity when sending a message or commenting on a story online. Now again, nothing transmitted via the Internet is truly safe from prying eyes- without level 5 security encryption software that is very expensive. If you are reading this post I would hazard to guess you probably aren't in the market for that. But as long as you keep your gmail account a secret and login with an alias- the average newspaper reporter probably won't be able to find you.
Some other rules of thumb- for God's sake NEVER send any sensitive information in an unencrypted email from your office computer- PARTICULARLY if you are in public office. Even privately owned companies and firms probably have some kind of software installed on your computer you know nothing about that monitors keystrokes, websites visited and sent emails. Even gmail accounts are not safe here as some software literally sends daily reports to administrators of every keystroke of a keypad.
Tomorrow- handheld devices- how safe are they???
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