I am increasingly seeing IETF participants posting messages to IETF
mailing lists, sending messages to chairs and ADs, and so on, where
their messages include confidentiality/security/legal notices at the
bottom. You know the ones; here are excerpts from two recent
examples:
--------------------------------
Information Security Notice: The information contained in this
mail is solely the property of the sender's organization. This
mail communication is confidential. Recipients named above are
obligated to maintain secrecy and are not permitted to disclose
the contents of this communication with others.
--------------------------------
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments is
CONFIDENTIAL and is intended only for the use of the addressee.
Any unauthorized use, disclosure, distribution, dissemination,
or copying is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you are
not the intended recipient, you are prohibited from any further
viewing of the e-mail or any attachments or from making any use
of the e-mail or attachments.
--------------------------------
Those are just the beginnings of them -- they go on, and continue for
another paragraph each. I've seen them in Spanish, French, and
German, as well as English.
Now, apart from being long and annoying, they're in conflict with the
IETF's Note Well, which applies to anything posted to IETF mailing
lists or sent to anyone in IETF leadership about IETF business:
http://www.ietf.org/about/note-well.html
I'd also argue that those posting such messages are running afoul of
their own organizations' rules by posting "confidential" messages
publicly. Of course, that's nonsense, but, hey, folks, it wouldn't be
the first time a company might behave irrationally and discipline
someone base on the letter, rather than the intent, of a rule.
Of course, I know that these messages are put there automatically,
according to your companies' policies. No one is actually including
them on purpose, and most probably aren't even aware, any more, that
they're there. But they are.
I don't think this merits any official statement by the IESG, though
the IESG might want to consider for itself whether it does. But how
about if we try to deal with this as a community? It rather makes you
look silly to have those notices there. And you don't want to look
silly, right? So have a look at your posts, everyone, and if yours
have any such junk at the bottoms of them, please do one of two
things, tout de suite:
1. Arrange not to have them put there. If there's some way you can
get an exception to your company's rule for things sent to the IETF,
do it.
2. Get a non-company address, and use that for your IETF
participation. You can get free addresses easily. This option also
has the advantage that if you should change employers, your
IETF-related email address doesn't need to change.
Barry
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