The IM Virus That Got Someone Fired
from the hmm... dept
While I'm not saying this couldn't happen, this story of someone who got fired when an IM virus sent out all of his past conversations to everyone on his buddy list certainly has the sound of an urban legend. First, no names or info are given. Second, the story is being told by an exec from a company offering software for enterprise instant messaging that would (in theory) protect against such attacks. If this were a real virus, wouldn't there be plenty of stories about such things? Instead, it seems like this is the only guy who's heard of it. The story sounds too simple to be true. After all of his old conversation were passed on to everyone else, the story goes, he got fired because an old conversation that was passed on to partners at his firm included negative comments about some of them. Once again, it certainly is possible that this happened (or that it will happen in the future). It just seems that the circumstances by which this information came out are a bit suspect.
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Not that its impossible mind you...but still.
Personally, the times I use IM at work, I don't keep a history of messages received or sent, and I consider every conversation the same as I would if I was speaking out loud to a co-worker.
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the easiest way to prevent this would be exactly what the above guy mentioned. Don't save history, then if this ever did come about, there wouldn't be anything to be sent.
its a quite possible virus, however I haven't heard of it and I highly doubt there's anything doing that right now.
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