Like email, instant messages can leave traces
Most people by now are aware email is not the best place to discuss intimate details or company secrets. It's too easy to forward them or send them to the wrong address and the message frequently leaves an easily traced trail of electronic footprints as it bounces from the sender to the receiver.
Florida congressman Mark Foley's alleged indiscretions with teenage interns is an uncomfortable reminder that the same applies for the relatively fleeting instant message. Typically occupying tiny pop-up windows in the corner of the computer screen, instant messages are easy to dismiss as nothing more than ephemeral flashes. Once you turn off the computer, the conversation is gone, right?
Kristin Nimsger with Kroll Ontrack says instant messages offer little more secure privacy than emails. Kroll Ontrack provides computer forensics and data recover for large corporations, government agencies and other clients. Nimsger says instant messages fit into a continuum of communications--none of which is entirely water tight.
