Don’t Express Yourself...

Don't Express Yourself

The Energy Department is killing two e-mail birds with one stone. Recently, Energy headquarters in Washington installed a "filter" that blocks incoming messages containing obscenities. The filter shields employees from some spam messages, which often contain profanity, but, as a bonus, it stops them from sending any off-color messages.

Now if you send an e-mail with a certain four-letter word to a headquarters employee, you'll get the following automated response: "Return to sender. Found the expression "[expletive]" 3 times, at 1 points each, for an expression score of 3 points."

Watch Your Fingers

"Bob, we really need to discuss the upcoming audit. A negative outcome would be unacceptable." If this were a real e-mail message, sent, say, from an agency manager to someone in the inspector general's office, could it be construed as strong-arming? Probably. So how do you stop the manager from sending it?

Entrust Inc., a Texas-based contractor, has one solution, a software program that can read between the lines of your e-mail. It's the electronic version of a broadcast sensor, and could, in the above example, prohibit the manager from sending the message until he deleted the aggressive passage. The company is pitching the program to agencies that want to avoid e-mail fiascos.

Can You Get an Amen?

Do the inspirational quotations people put at the end of their e-mails make you feel inspired, or a bit uneasy? For officials at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, it's the latter, and they're particularly concerned about passages from the Bible. Many e-mail authors place in their signature lines particularly personal references to scripture.

But in September, Academy officials sent a memo to students and staff reminding them that their e-mail is government property, and that religious allusions aren't kosher. The crackdown came after an academy survey showed some cadets had been harassed for their religious beliefs.