Conference 7.286::dcu

>>Similarly, I would suspect that publishing election-related statements from 
>>the 3G's in this forum could very well be construed as providing those 
>>individuals with access to Digital's computer networks and may be in 
>>conflict with the network security guidelines as well.  i.e the person 
>>entering the reply, should that person be seen as acting as an agent for 
>>the non-DEC employee, could be seen as soliciting/campaigning.


Would this apply to Paul Kinzelman as well?

    Oh believe me.  We won't need to publish their election statements
    here.  I'm sure the 3G supporters will be keeping the cafeteria's
    well supplied this election!!!!
    
    

    Let's clarify something...
    
    Is discussing a note with the 3G's a violation (as opposed to giving
    them a copy of the memo)?
    
    Hope not, that definitely smacks of KGB politics, and
    we all know we've had enough of that recently!!

    As far as I know, and I've asked, posting mail from people outside
    the company is not a violation of any policy. Not in and of itself
    at least. I believe that posters of mail will be considered responsible
    for the contents of those messages. That's only reasonable or we'd have
    people doing all sorts of things by pretending that a third party wrote
    the message.

    As for solicitation, I believe that one could post the same sort of
    thing on anothers behalf that that person could post if they were an
    employee. But one could not use this as an end around to post things
    that the mailer could NOT post if they were an employee.

    			Alfred

re: .-1

This is so confusing. My head hurts.

-Jack

    
    >This is so confusing. My head hurts.

    That's the way it's supposed to be, Jack. My head hurts from it all
    and I knew you'd want to share my pain. :-)

    			Alfred

    Well, it can actually be stated much more simply.  Digital employees
    are responsible for what they post, regardless of the origin of the
    information that is posted.  Additionally, the Moderator is responsible
    for everything that is posted.  That's why Alfred's head hurts... :-)
    
    re .0:  I thought it was policy, not security guidelines, that requires
    that we not forward notes outside the company.  It comes to the same
    thing, though.  However, there is no ban that I am aware of on mailing
    someone your *own* note.  Provided, of course, that it doesn't disclose
    company confidential information, and otherwise meets the guidelines
    for email.  
    
    There are some widely discussed cases where someone criticized an
    outside company in a note (e.g. in HOME_WORK), and the note was
    disclosed to the owner of the company, who then complained to Digital.
    A result of this is restrictions on the allowed notes, as well as a
    lot of heat for the posters and moderators.  I did not hear, however,
    that there was any retribution on the Digital employees who DISCLOSED
    those notes -- in some cases I think they were relatives of the people
    who complained.  Maybe it happened and not even any rumors leaked out?  
    Anyway, my point is that the handling of these issues appears to be
    case-sensitive.  Certainly, one CAN be fired for disclosing a note.
    
    		Enjoy,
    		Larry
    
    PS -- I am convinced that the messages from Paul Kinzelman that I have
    posted are within policy, as well as all the other notes that I have
    entered that are currently in this file.  Alfred is apparently fairly
    sure of it, too, else I would have gotten a polite note from him on
    the ones he wasn't certain of.  Still, anything can happen.  

Can anyone show me a policy which prohibits outside forwarding of information
not related to the company's business, such as the DCU-related information in
this conference?

It may be inappropriate to mail information about Digital-related information,
but I have never seen a corporate claim that non-Digital information could not
be passed on.

/john

    Um...  nit...  and, yes, I have a splitting headache, too...
    
    Paul Kinzelman and Phil Gransewicz are both members (in good standing)
    of the DCU BoD.  To my battered little mind it would seem appropriate
    that they would have some access to this Notefile, which is about the
    DCU...  but, as I have so painfully learned in the last week, what I
    might consider reasonable and appropriate apparently ain't so...  in
    all cases, except when they are...
    
    Man, my little foxhole just doesn't feel as safe as it used to...  :^}

re: .8

I don't know if it's explicit in a policy. I thought it was related to the
obligatory "For DIGITAL internal use only" boilerplate which is supposed
to be sported in all conferences. I just noticed that same doesn't exist
(at least in initial screens) in 1.* of this conference.

If I'm right, the policy would be the appropriate security policy that
talks about the levels of classification, I guess. I used to know all
this stuff, but . . . 

-Jack

re: .9

But even though they're board members, as non-DIGITAL employees they have
no access to these conferences which are "For DIGITAL internal use only."
Although, that's somewhat confused by the issue around access which was
at one time granted to certain DCU officials, which I believe can be
confirmed by any BoD member.

-Jack

There shouldn't be a "For DIGITAL Internal Use Only" label on a
non-work-related conference.

Doesn't security policy forbid applying Digital Classification
Labels to non-Digital info?

Isn't the issue with access for non-DEC-employee board members
a network issue rather than a content-classification issue?

/john

    It seems to me, if READ access is presently allowed to DCU officers
    (see 746.*), then by the same reasoning, equivalent access ought also
    to be allowed to present DCU BOD members, and possibly, to BOD
    candidates as well.

    Alfred, can you get an official ruling on this ?

    L.

    
    >    Alfred, can you get an official ruling on this ?

    In progress sort of. Currently DCU management has read access to
    this conference. Theoretically DCU Board members could get access
    through DCU management. One would hope that management would share
    things with the Board that they should know. While the DCU has
    access to this conference it is my understanding that not all the
    "paperwork" is done. My own preference would be for the Digital DCU
    liaison committee to move to get the non-Digital Board members added
    to the access list *after* the main approvals are signed sealed and
    delivered. Given proper approvals I can easily send nightly updates
    to non-Digital Board members who have Internet access of most kinds.

    			Alfred

There is no obligation that all notes conferences be labelled "For Digital
Internal Use Only".  If there is no such labelling, there is no policy of
which I am aware that prohibits disclosure of contents to a non-employee.
This conference has not been "classified" and therefore one should assume
that contents could be freely distributed.

I also believe that it is permissible to post mail messages received from
outside the company (with the author's permission, of course).  I don't
see anything wrong with candidate statements being posted as long as they
don't contain defamatory material, but it's possible that Corporate
Personnel might view things differently.

					Steve

    Steve,
    
    I agree that people that write notes should not assume that they won't
    be distributed outside.  That's good advice.  It is not permission from
    Digital to distribute.  Remember, the Company considers the notesfile
    to be its property.  Digital has granted read-access to DCU management. 
    I have not heard of any other.
    
    Here's some more free advice:  Don't take a copy of this notesfile or
    its contents and "safekeep" it somewhere off of Digital premises.  That
    act might be interpreted as stealing Company property.
    
    Mark

    I tend to agree with Mark, not to assume that if something doesn't have
    a proprietary label that it can be distributed outside of Digital. 
    Because of the wide latitude people take with discussions in NOTES, I
    would assume the opposite.  Unless the information is commonly
    considered to be public knowledge, I wouldn't distribute it outside of
    Digital.
    
    Certainly, in a court of law someone outside of Digital could argue
    that if it isn't labelled it can be used, but that doesn't excuse the
    person who gave it out from being held accountable to Digital for
    breaching a loyalty.
    
    This does bring up a good point, though.  Perhaps we should label all
    non-restricted NOTES as "Digital Internal Use Only".  That still might
    not hold up in a court, if a document within the NOTE wasn't labelled,
    but it might make it clearer to individuals that the information
    contained in the file shouldn't be distributed outside of Digital.
    
    I haven't made a point of reading some of the non-restricted files'
    base notes but maybe many of them already do have that label or
    warning.
    
    Jim

re: .16

>    Here's some more free advice:  Don't take a copy of this notesfile or
>    its contents and "safekeep" it somewhere off of Digital premises.  That
>    act might be interpreted as stealing Company property.

This may be more appropriate subject matter for another conference, but -

Recent events notwithstanding, certainly many things can be interpreted
for something other than what they ostensibly were. However I'd not be
inclined to warn people _against_ safekeeping anything off of DIGITAL
premises. That very activity has saved the company mucho denero on many
occasions when backups were of questionable integrity, etc. And I won't
get into a discussion about what constitutes theft or the significance
of motives.

-Jack

    There are sanctioned off site storage operations. Run by Digital, run
    for Digital or approved by Digital for internal groups to use. If you
    are using some other method, this can be considered against a number of
    policies/proceedures including Purchasing. If someone believes that
    becasue of true short term / program related needs another method must
    be used, they have [I hope] consulted with their management first. No
    matter your your motives, remember that loose data tends to wander off.