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Guide to Slack import and export tools

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Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#431

Post by jimktrains2 »

thefifthsetpin wrote: post #425
jimktrains2 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a month and then do it while making sure you have a clear case. I believe similar advice is given if there is an OSHA check -- since you can't know why you were checked, it's best to wait before firing anyone for non-blatant/egregious, even if it's with cause and evidence. > This seems like the same minefield as asking an employee to login to his facebook. How is this like facebook? It's a corporate medium, just…

"Wait a month" if you do that, then slack just cost you thousands of dollars. How mad I'd be at slack would be proportional to how may thousands of dollars they just cost me.

Such is the cost of constant surveillance? You need to weigh the pros and cons in any situation. If you don't think that you saw such a DM is relevant, then consult your lawyer and fire them. If you feel it best to wait, you wait.

Also, how is this different from Email?

Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#432

Post by lwhalen »

Cacti wrote: post #395
jedberg wrote: post #370

You can tell who here has worked for a large American company and who hasn't. If you've ever worked for a large American company, you know that nothing you do on company equipment or with a service the company pays for is ever private, and you should never assume it is. I'll be honest, I always thought Slack DMs were viewable by the admin. As a Slack admin myself, I always assumed I had that ability. Never used so, I…

It is very odd. We've had corporate monitoring of practically all employee electronic activities for decades. It's enshrined in legislation and tested in case law. The capabilities are built into practically every major business software. There are whole industries built up around it. Yet suddenly everyone is losing their mind over some corporate IMs just because it's Slack? I feel like I'm on Reddit, not a site oste…

I know in general there's the whole "the company pays for it, the company owns it, the company can audit it" corportesse oblige, enshrined in case-law yada yada, but one of the things I always liked about Slack was it seemed to have a bit of that old counter-culture sneer around "yeah, that may be true, but we code for the user anyway". This is very much an anti-user, pro-corporate maneuver, and I think it's a shock to many who took Slack's long-time messaging to the contrary at face-value.

Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#433

Post by amw »

humanrebar wrote: post #254
tedivm wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to tell you this but if you would quit a job for this reason you probably can't work in the US. The US has laws about corporate compliance, and it has requirements for things like dealing with sexual harassment. There is no such thing as a "private conversation" that takes place over a corporate network. For example, in the US sexual harassment is taken seriously. If a company gets a complaint of sexual harass…

> There is no such thing as a "private conversation" that takes place over a corporate network. It's a tech issue, cultural issue, and a legal issue, but it's harmful that we seem to be forgetting the wisdom of discretion as life become more digitized. If the law or culture says "no expectation of discretion", they're just wrong and likely hypocritical. It's healthy, normal, and appropriate to tell specific things to…

Note that there's also a difference between work-mandated communication channels (for which there is no "opt-in"--there is a directory with your email address, you're on the list of Slack users, etc) and channels outside of work that you can opt into and out of (you can not give your personal number when the company is big enough for that to be an option, block people when they abuse it, not reciprocate keybase follows or leave signal chat groups, etc). A channel that is mandated to be kept open loses some discretion for its users, and the loss of power has to be compensated in some way.

(This is the more charitable way of looking at it, obviously. There are plenty of other reasons things are the way they are, and they aren't all good for us, there is just also this)

Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#435

Post by bbarn »

jedberg wrote: post #370

You can tell who here has worked for a large American company and who hasn't. If you've ever worked for a large American company, you know that nothing you do on company equipment or with a service the company pays for is ever private, and you should never assume it is. I'll be honest, I always thought Slack DMs were viewable by the admin. As a Slack admin myself, I always assumed I had that ability. Never used so, I…

Well, on the other hand, some of us checked, read the privacy policy, and found it acceptable. Compliance reports came out, with the caveat that that was from point in time forward, and that was also acceptable.

This is rewriting the privacy policy we agreed to retroactively, and it's not OK in my mind. I don't say anything stupid on company slack, but in principle this is a bad move.

Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#436

Post by schiffern »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #191
froindt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some middle ground, some grey area where whether it's alright is murky. It's kind of pulling the rug out from under people when the policy of a 3rd party provider abruptly changes and suddenly tons of messages become available to the company. There are a number of things I might mention to a coworker over a private IM which wouldn't necessarily put my employment at risk, but would be awkward for manag…

These are all the sorts of things that you would ideally want management to know about so they can make better informed decisions. Assuming of course that you have competent and trustworthy managers.

>Assuming of course that you have competent and trustworthy managers.

You're begging the question.

"Competent and trustworthy" people won't abuse their power by definition. Anyone who abuses their power intentionally is untrustworthy, and anyone who abuses their power unintentionally is incompetent.

In the real world there are many incompetent and untrustworthy leaders. Slack has no choice but to operate in the real world.

Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#437

Post by afastow »

Cacti wrote: post #363
afastow wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I missed some context but since when are we talking about committing crimes and the SEC or FBI getting involved? If it's that serious I assume they'd just get a warrant and get the logs directly from Slack. To me that scenario is completely unrelated to the ability of an employer to silently read DMs of their employees for any reason they see fit.

Don't you think some companies need the ability to investigate things their employees are doing for the specific purpose of bringing it to the attention of government agencies PRIOR to warrants being issued and PRIOR to pissing off the entire federal government?

No? I'm being serious when I say this idea is absurd to me. If you have a serious level of concern about your employees doing something illegal then why are they your employee in the first place?

If you are going to use "We need to be checking for illegal activity" as a justification, why stop at DMs? Why not ask your employees to always be carrying around a recording device that is constantly sending their verbal conversations somewhere where they can be electronically filtered for suspicious keywords? Obviously that's crazy and I'm not saying anyone is suggesting that or would support that, but what exactly makes that scenario over the line that doesn't apply to DMs?

I'm assuming the answer is "expectation of privacy" or the lack-thereof for DMs, and I guess my response would be that we should go back to an expectation of privacy for DMs also.

Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#438

Post by bbarn »

Cacti wrote: post #395
jedberg wrote: post #370

You can tell who here has worked for a large American company and who hasn't. If you've ever worked for a large American company, you know that nothing you do on company equipment or with a service the company pays for is ever private, and you should never assume it is. I'll be honest, I always thought Slack DMs were viewable by the admin. As a Slack admin myself, I always assumed I had that ability. Never used so, I…

It is very odd. We've had corporate monitoring of practically all employee electronic activities for decades. It's enshrined in legislation and tested in case law. The capabilities are built into practically every major business software. There are whole industries built up around it. Yet suddenly everyone is losing their mind over some corporate IMs just because it's Slack? I feel like I'm on Reddit, not a site oste…

The difference is their privacy policy has been changed retroactively against the good faith their users had. That's the problem. Of course if it's corporate it's usually monitored, but when Slack championed the user and only catered to the company when forced (via compliance reports which told you they were enabled) and now suddenly switches to a model where past contracts are broken, people have a right to be upset.

Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#439

Post by bgentry »

MarcScott wrote: post #416

IMHO I don't think this is a fair title change. What is important here is the fact that access to DMs have changed. Not that the general import/export tools have changed. If Google changed their TOS to suddenly make everyone's search history public, would the title read "Google changes TOS"?

Agreed, and all the past comments are about this one specific controversial change.

Re: Guide to Slack import and export tools

#440

Post by protomyth »

pyjammas wrote: post #381
protomyth wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> abusing your privileged access to conversations intended to be private (however justified you may consider it to be) will just breed mistrust among employees Abusing your privileged access?!? You do realize some of us are required to access those communications for a variety of reasons especially because a threat is happening? Also, I don't get a choice when the lawyer shows up and says we need to look at X's accou…

While I sympathize with that concern, I do really believe that actively preventing employees from employing natural means of 'private' conversation is squarely in the 'panopticon' sphere of employment. I find it difficult enough that people can be 'owned' for full work weeks as far as their physical presence, but I suppose I'm pragmatic enough to accept that this is the status quo. But the thought that they are activ…

Yeah, we are talking about people here.

You think I like any of this? Do you really think I get my jollies from looking in someone's e-mail to find a picture they e-mailed another employee that is so far into NSFW that it is sickening. Or the fun of finding out how some employee is plotting with others to make life miserable for someone else? I would prefer people keep their crap off the servers intended to do business.

We have folks here who have argued that a remark at a conference should get someone fired from work. We are talking about something owned and operated by a company that they will be legally liable for unless they are vigilant. Something that hits the press and people will be saying "why didn't the company know?" and "how could they not stop it?". Yeah, we are talking about people here. Companies get sued and people lose their jobs.

Never mind the professions that absolutely have every communication logged and monitored.

If you want something the company cannot look at then use something outside the company. Its really that simple[1]. Its really simple, if you don't pay for it then it is not yours. If its not your computer then don't expect privacy.

I still cannot understand the folks who want to use stuff from work systems even when they are not work related. Have your own life, interests, and stuff. You are trading your time and work for money. Don't give companies something beyond what they pay for.

I truly cannot understand how one can have a dignified life as an individual when all your forms of communication are being watched by your overlords.

If your place of employment owns all your forms of communication then you have a lot more problems beyond this.

1) well, unless you get into something really nasty and the court discovery orders start flying.

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