Re: retiring e-mail revisited

[Danny Sauer <sauer@cloudmaster.com>]

On Tue, Jun 05, 2001 at 09:25:56PM -0500, Jay Link wrote:
> 
> > Its never okay to lie.
> ...
> 
> > If you delete it and lie about what or why something happens, you will
> > be the #1 suspect (and should be), any time something odd happens to
> > the system.
> 
> Only if you get caught.
> 
> Let's not be naive here, Mark. The fact is -- and America Online realized
> this years ago -- if you ever admit that you've got problems, your people
> will turn on you and leave you for dog meat.

Funny, I don't respect or trust AOL's admins to take care of my
data either. :)

> There's a story about a medieval Japanese commander who wore red to battle
> so that his troops wouldn't see him bleed.

There's a quote from Samuel Clemens [1] that goes something like "if
you are always truthful, you don't have to remember anything".  It
applies here as well.  What happens when a similar situation comes
up later, but the explanation Mr. Robert uses differs slightly as
to how the message "magically" dissapeared again?  What about when
the user being explained to has a good memory (or an email record)
and hire/fire power over him?  "Whoops, I lied to you twice that
you know about" is not a real good thing to get caught in - especially
when there are alternate methods that involve honesty.

There's an ethical means and an unethical means of solving the
problem.  Both are technically equivilent, one will not come back
to haunt the implementor, the other might.  The final descision is
up to the implementor.

[1] AKA, Mark Twain

--Danny, fanning the flames needlessly
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