[stuwhite]

Originally Posted by freakinvibe

Can you explain exactly where this is logged?

this is me texting (SMSing) myself just now. Look in C:\Program Files\Research In Motion\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\Logs\<date>\SMSLogxxxxxxxxx

"Name.ID","Email Address","Type of Message","To","From","Callback Phone Number","Body","Send/Received Date","Server Log Date","Overall Message Status","Command","UID"
"White, Stuart.393","swhite@xxx.com","Outgoing","+44 7904 112233","","","Blah blah blah ","2009/02/25 14:16:56","2009/02/25 14:17:08","Tx_Sent","Add","-1379164407"

"White, Stuart.393","swhite@xxx.com","Incoming","","+44790 4112233,"","Blah blah blah ","2009/02/25 14:17:07","2009/02/25 14:17:09","Rx_Received","Update","-1379153460"

"White, Stuart.393","swhite@xxx.com","Outgoing","+44 7904 112233","","","Blah blah blah ","2009/02/25 14:16:56","2009/02/25 14:17:09","Tx_Sent","Update","-1379164407"

[Sherrera]

Originally Posted by stuwhite

If you want to actually monitor email you should be looking at something other than the BES. And make sure you are not getting yourself into trouble by doing something which breaks the law somewhere. If your users are in place A and your mail server is in place B (and maybe you are in place C), ensure that nothing you do with regard to reading/monitoring email contravenes an applicable law.

Contrary to what people think, personal info on a company device is subject to a degree of protection (here in the EU anyway) and while the device is owned by the company (and I agree with what everyone else says about "don't store your personal stuff on a company device if you are bothered"), you have no implicit right (here in the EU) to access data of a personal nature, regardless of the ownership of the storage medium. I am pretty sure this protection is extended to any citizen of the EU, ragrdless of the data location; so if you are in the US and access personal data for an EU user, you may automatically be governed by our information protection laws.

Bit off topic here I know but monitoring email isn't somerthing you want to get involved in unless you really have to, take it from a seasoned messaging admin :-> And if you have to do it make sure you understand how the law applies to you, the guy switching the stuff on, as you are generally more liable than anyone else in the org

Thank you for the reply, I would only need this in regrads to work email. I would never think of monitoring someone personal email even if I have the right and the ability to do so because I think 1) its wrong in and of it self 2) I dont have the time, I barely have time to monitor what I need to and 3) they are not the interesting

[Sherrera]

The reason I ask is that my manager has asked if it would be possible to do this for the Blackberrys. Some times in my field there are issues that come up that require emails to be gone through for legal reasons. I suppose it would be just as easy to do it at the exchange, I was just wondering if there was a BES way as well.

[stuwhite]

Originally Posted by Sherrera

Thank you for the reply, I would only need this in regrads to work email. I would never think of monitoring someone personal email even if I have the right and the ability to do so because I think 1) its wrong in and of it self 2) I dont have the time, I barely have time to monitor what I need to and 3) they are not the interesting

haha you can spot the true IT people, we so don't care about reading other ppl's email . Yeah I hear ya but trust me even "work" stuff can have consequences so my advice is to always make sure you have checked how legally liable you personally are, especially in geographies which are overly-litigous

[stuwhite]

Originally Posted by Sherrera

The reason I ask is that my manager has asked if it would be possible to do this for the Blackberrys. Some times in my field there are issues that come up that require emails to be gone through for legal reasons. I suppose it would be just as easy to do it at the exchange, I was just wondering if there was a BES way as well.

Ah right, got you now. Well if you have access to Exchange I would do it that way coz as a besadmin the only way you really have access is by using the besadmin account and tbh even as an admin I find that method a bit concerning. Remind your manager that the BES looks at the Exch mbx so Exch is the source and there is nothing email-wise you couldn't get from Exchange. Many ppl assume the BES has copies of the email. As we said earlier though, content of SMS and PIN messages are the one extra thing you can get on the BES over the mailserver.

[Sherrera]

Ok, yea I think that clears it up I guess I was thinking that it logged the email the way it logged the sms list. It makes more sense now, thanks.

[atuarre]

I would not be bragging about reading peoples e-mails if you do not have a legitimate reason to do so. We had a couple (7) of IT people that did just that. They would sit there, and log into people's computers using SMS and just watch the screen. We had people reviewing e-mails in Exchange.

I really do not know what was going on. Some people say they got some wild idea that they were protecting the company and felt compelled to do what they were doing. They were part of a local IT office, and not part of corporate IT, nor were they affiliated with the security division of corporate IT.

Each locations local IT is responsible for resolving issues with the exception of issues that might be of a larger scope or nature, such as network issues (unless it was something on the local level like bad cables or broken fiber, etc) which would then be handled by network engineering at corporate IT.

Some locations have their exchange servers on site, and others connect to their exchange servers which are located in the corporate IT data center. The location I am speaking of had their exchange server at their local office.

The executives there got wind that they were "reviewing" e-mails, there was an internal IT investigation, and then there was an investigation by HR, and all the employees involved in the "reviewing" were terminated.

Unless your boss tells you to snoop through peoples e-mails or review their activity, or you have some sort of reason for doing something such as this, I do not suggest you spend time on such things, and rather do what you were hired to do.

[CO_BBTechie]

Originally Posted by atuarre

...Unless your boss tells you to snoop through peoples e-mails or review their activity, or you have some sort of reason for doing something such as this, I do not suggest you spend time on such things, and rather do what you were hired to do.

= no brainer. These chumps were obviously freelancing and were not authorized to intercept communications, nor were they looking for anything in particular. They'd have been better off sticking to WoW!

IMO those who "brag" about being able to monitor others' communications are not IT professionals. And shops that allow more than 1 or 2 trusted techs to have admin access to emails which may include the personnel group are opening themselves up to liability and cannot blame the offenders exclusively. Tight controls equates to knowing what your troops are CAPABLE of doing... not just what they may BE doing.

[atuarre]

Originally Posted by CO_BBTechie

= no brainer. These chumps were obviously freelancing and were not authorized to intercept communications, nor were they looking for anything in particular. They'd of been better off sticking to WoW!

IMO those who "brag" about being able to monitor others' communications are not IT professionals. And shops that allow more than 1 or 2 trusted techs to have admin access to emails which may include the personnel group are opening themselves up to liability and cannot blame the offenders exclusively. Tight controls equates to knowing what your troops are CAPABLE of doing... not just what they may BE doing.

I agree. That particular IT department had access to all systems related to IT on the local level, including exchange, Active Directory (for that location), etc. What bothered me is they could have been viewing information related to finance or payroll.

[knottyrope]

Originally Posted by knottyrope

8+ years reading email, YAY!

I should of been more specific. I can read if needed like Boss said so, FBI said so, Dept head wants to know, some one is sick, PC died user needs answer ASAP, forgot my laptop at home and just want to check, etc Just doing this has been an eye opener.

I also manage all the quaratined incoming mails. And sometimes you have to read a lil too see if it is SPAM or knot.

[Sherrera]

I dont know about bragging, but when the HR dept, legal and Executives ask me to monitor the email of an employee I feel pretty safe that I am doing my job and not snooping for fun.

[bb_girl]

Can't they even see/read pin to pin messages in 4.1 nowadays?!

[knottyrope]

Originally Posted by knottyrope

If you connect to a BES server then BESADMIN can see what they want.


BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

I refuse to repeat myself.

[freakinvibe]

OK, I dug into the SMS log thing. In a standard BES 4.1 setup, BES logs your calls (date/time/target phone number/duration), but SMS and PIN logging is switched off.

The BES Administrator has to switch "SMS sync" and "PIN sync" on in the IT policy, then it will log SMS and PIN including message body.

[stuwhite]

Originally Posted by freakinvibe

OK, I dug into the SMS log thing. In a standard BES 4.1 setup, BES logs your calls (date/time/target phone number/duration), but SMS and PIN logging is switched off.

The BES Administrator has to switch "SMS sync" and "PIN sync" on in the IT policy, then it will log SMS and PIN including message body.

That's correct but be aware that in most EU countries, logging the call data is illegal or at least seen as a contravention of certain Information Acts unless very carefully documented and agreed with users. It's a minefield for us as we have users round the world using BESs here and in the US but if the local country or EU law prohibits it for even one country we are in, we have to comply. It's so much easier just to assume you are going to be liable and disable it, and only enable it when someone can prove it's sanctioned and legal (can you spot I used to be in IT for Law Enforcement :->).

[stuwhite]

Originally Posted by CO_BBTechie

Tight controls equates to knowing what your troops are CAPABLE of doing... not just what they may BE doing.

I love that quote man!

[CO_BBTechie]

Originally Posted by Sherrera

I dont know about bragging, but when the HR dept, legal and Executives ask me to monitor the email of an employee I feel pretty safe that I am doing my job and not snooping for fun.

I don't believe anyone (not I anyway) is directing any of this towards those are merely showing due diligence in communications monitoring. That being said, if you have a reason to look, and are not attempting to do so covertly, carry on. Execs and users alike should all be aware of same if that is your policy. Nobody should learn that the IT group is aware of your messy divorce through the grape vine.

If however, you are sneaking around reading personal emails about your coworkers, execs, or personnel folks, and possibly even sharing a chuckle about the content with someone.... then I'd suggest you've got no business in there and I'd recommend you start pricing a new life at the local Wal*Mart.

[BBGirlHelp]

I just posted a similar post elsewhere. I am concerned that my Company can view the content of my chats in Yahoo, Hotmail or Google Talk messengers. Can they or can they only see that I've been using google talk?

[NJBlackBerry]

Assume they can see everything. Remember that you have extremely limited privacy rights when using company assets (PCs, Internet, BBs).

[Jadey]

Originally Posted by BBGirlHelp

I just posted a similar post elsewhere. I am concerned that my Company can view the content of my chats in Yahoo, Hotmail or Google Talk messengers. Can they or can they only see that I've been using google talk?

I have never found a way to log the contents of IM chats from googletalk, yahoo or hotmail via BES. Your administrator will be able to see what apps are on your BB. They can also (if they want) block those applications that you mention. They can also (if they want) use networking tools to block and/or record your web traffic IF they force all web-traffic over MDS.

But to answer your question:

With regards to Yahoo/Hotmail/Googletalk chats, BES has no visibility of the text in the chat. I am also not aware of a way to log this data via BES. I am not a master of all networking options, so maybe your admin has another way (for example, I cannot log Lotus SameTime chats VIA BES, but my users use it via BES and I log it on the SameTime server.)
AFAIK it is not possible to do the same (easily) with Yahoo/WLM/Googletalk, but hey, never say never.