Fergie's Tech Blog

Tracking hidden clues in e-mail

An article by Gina Kolata (The New York Times), which appears in The International Herald Tribune, reveals that:

As an object of modern surveillance, e-mail is both reassuring and troubling. It is a potential treasure trove for investigators monitoring suspected terrorists and other criminals, but it also creates the potential for abuse, by giving businesses and government agencies an efficient means of monitoring the attitudes and activities of employees and citizens.

Now the science of e-mail tracking and analysis has been given a unlikely boost by a bitter chapter in the history of corporate malfeasance: the Enron scandal.