By H. Keith Melton , Craig M. Pilgian, H. Keith Melton, Craig Piligian, Duane Swierczynski

Protecting Your Internet and E-Mail Activity

Is your boss keeping track of how many times you log on to a particular Web site? If you're even asking, the answer is almost certainly yes. The vast majority of firms do some form of monitoring of phone calls, voice mail, Internet usage, and e-mail (estimates are as high as 80 percent among Fortune 500 companies). Assume all e-mails and Internet usage are being monitored by your employer, and take the following protective steps.

1. Never download sexual material at work. Files from pornographic sites are stored in your temp folder, which can be accessed by anyone. Avoid incorporating the word "sex" or any sexual terms in any e-mail or voice mail. Being labeled an abuser of sexual sites on the Internet could earn you special observation, intense surveillance, and/or funny looks in the executive washroom.

2. Bring a laptop from home. Setting up an independent Web-based e-mail service provides some protection from an employer's monitoring, but as long as you access it using the company Internet server, you're still vulnerable. If you must communicate securely on the Internet while at work, bring along your laptop with its own modem, and use a dial-up connection to send and receive e-mails. Be sure to avoid your employer's ISDN line, intranet, or ISP. Your Internet usage should be completely isolated from the company system and prying eyes. If a colleague asks about the presence of your personal laptop, just say it contains a special software program that you need for a project.

3. Encode your correspondence. If you absolutely must communicate with a conspirator using your office computer, employ word substitution to obfuscate the true meaning of your exchange. For example, the message, "Meet me at the Starlight Motel at 10:00 a.m. on Wed. October 13" could be expressed as, "The Simpson report is due on April 19 at 10:00 a.m." In this example, the sender and the recipient have agreed in advance to use certain codes and coefficients: "Simpson report" is a preset code name for the Starlight Motel. The sender always adds six to all dates, and the receiver always subtracts six from all dates: October, the 10th month, is advanced by six months to April, and the 13th is advanced by six days to the 19th. The receiver reverses the process to translate the actual dates. This technique was utilized by FBI special agent Robert Hanssen, one of the most damaging moles in U.S. history, when he communicated with his KGB and SVR handlers.