The OneMinute Geek:

Keeping e-mail documents private

The Problem

Computing is not anonymous. And here’s the irony.  When I surf the Internet or send email from the privacy of my home – or even my office cubicle – I am lulled into this false sense of security.  Because computer use is such a solitary task, I need to constantly remind myself it’s not necessarily a private

The truth is, any email you send can become public.  As the executives at Enron and Microsoft discovered, old email can come back to haunt you.  Microsoft Word is no different, nor is Excel or PowerPoint. These titles are actually massive programs, which are living and breathing in the sense that there are several features and functions that are running the background.  They can even contain viruses.

For example, depending on the settings in your software, that file you just emailed to a colleague or vendor may contain hidden information about who created it, what was edited and deleted from the text, and the identities and the types of computers on which it was edited.  If you want to play with these features, open Word, choose Tools and enable Track Changes.  It will do exactly that, showing each and every addition and deletion.  To see a record of changes made to a document, choose View and then choose Markup.  

Some information is embedded deeper in the document and is tougher to decipher, but if you want to take a peek, open a Word document in a text editor Windows Notepad. California’s Attorney General was looking a bit guilty when he circulated to other attorneys a legal opinion letter about file sharing which showed that representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America had edited it.  So much for staying arm’s length from special interests!

So can one do?

The Solution:

Perhaps the most certain solution is not to share any files.  Of course, that’s not a practical option for most of us who need to share files with friends, colleagues and customers.

But, at the very least, you should view the final document in the “Track Changes” mode and be sure to accept or reject the changes and thus removing the tracking information.

If you don’t need or want the recipient to make changes to the document, you may consider sending it as a PDF (portable document format) file.  Apple’s OS X has a PDF converter built into it.  For Windows-based machines, you will need to buy one.  Adobe offers Acrobat 6.0 at www.Adobe.com. You can even use the 30-day trial version before buying.  MacroMedia offers a competing product called RoboPDF for about half the price.

If you want to just read PDFs and not create them, there’s no need to buy the software. You can download a free version of Acrobat Reader at www.Download.com.

James Kerr is President/CEO of SuperGeeks, a Hawaii-based computer service and repair company (www.supergeeks.net). Please feel free to send your questions, comments and suggestions to Mr. Kerr. He can be reached at kerr@supergeeks.net and 942-0773.