Ninja Dis…..What?
I recently received an email from Sunbelt Software about their new product “Ninja Disclaimers.” This is definitely a marketing gimmick blown way out of proportion. I don’t think that Ninja’s really care whether an email or any other type of communication has a disclaimer on it.
All ninja technique information transmitted is intended only for the ninja to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential material. All death threats or mocking of soon to be realized death experiences are intended only for the intended victim. Review or other use of this information by persons other than the intended ninja or victim is prohibited. If you’ve received this in error, please contact the sending ninja so that you can be added to the list. Do not worry about deleting this message from any computer as this message will self destruct immediately.
Of course, combining the ninja and victim response message is apparently not necessary because the ninja stealth technology provided by Sunbelt’s software should be able to recognize the syntax differences between messages going to other ninjas and message going to ninja victims. I am not sure, however, if this will sign ninja signatures properly as I suspect ninjas use multiple identities and the algorithm involved in this type of detection might just be too much for a product that only costs $100.
This is just taking ninja terminology too far and it is a shame.
I am also a bit skeptical as to the legality of these disclaimers. Are they really worth the bits they consume on the network? Has anybody been charged, fined, or sentenced for reading an email that was not addressed to them and had a disclaimer attached? Would they have gotten away with it if the disclaimer was not attached? Please leave a comment and let me know if these are worth it?
Go forth and do good things,
Cutaway
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June 22nd, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I think email disclaimers are useless anyway… My company uses them, but I know other companies do not (like Boeing, for instance).
June 26th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
There was a CSO Alarmed column about this four years ago now: http://www.csoonline.com/alarmed/02132003.html
I too think these disclaimers are a total waste. Anything that might warrant protection needs to be really protected, using available digital signing and encryption.