While Colby does have policies and expectations that e-mail should be private correspondence, you should not count on it. Expect the worst and plan accordingly. Here are a few words of advice:
- Think before you hit the Send button! You may accidentally be doing a "reply all" when you mean to just reply to one person. If you are angry, slow down. Your e-mail may be nastier (or be interpreted as such by the recipient) than you really want it to be.
- Check the recipient list before sending a message. You may have a typo that will send your message to the wrong person or domain.
- Do not put anything into a message that you would not want to see on the front page of the newspaper. If your e-mail does go astray, you won't be embarrassed later. Do not put items like passwords, Social Security numbers, or bank account numbers into e-mail unless you encrypt the message. Even with encryption, including sensitive information is not a good idea.
- Use SSL. SSL provides end-to-end encryption of your e-mail so that network snoopers cannot grab passwords or message content. However, SSL does not secure your message contents. Encrypt the message before sending it if you want this level of security.
- Encrypt your e-mail. If the information is very sensitive then encrypt your message so that only you and your bonifide recipient can decrypt it. You will have to google on this topic for more information.
Above all, use common sense!
