Yesterday, there was a link with all of the IM's printed, in their full glory.
How can this happen? Do we have to worry that our private IMs can be published?
IM's involve more than one party and anyone a party to the IM can capture, save or snapshot the conevrsation. There are programs the "kids" parents could have had running on the computer that capture the IM's and store them secretly. Someone at the ISP level could have been capturing them, Etc, etc, etc.
You should ALWAYS believe that your e-mails and IMs have the potential to be printed. MSN messenger and Trillian both save all conversations, not sure about AIM.
There's no such thing as a private IM or E-mail. That's why Rummy doesn't even have E-mail at home or work. Anything that goes out on the Net is public.
A friend who used to work for the NSA and now has a private security company, used to hack into the White House computers and leave nasty messages for their computer guys. The NSA was all over the Bush the Elder and the Clinton White House about computer security.
He tells companies that if you have information you want secure, never allow it to be put on a computer that is EVER connected to the Net. Anything on a computer connected to the Net is available to people who want it bad enough.
E-mail and IM are like publishing it in the newspaper.