On Nov 12, 2007, at 6:04 PM, Peter P. wrote:

> The eternal thread about 'we 0wn you and your soul' has returned yet  
> again. The
> Slashdot thread:
>
>  http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/11/2141259
>
> and my usual standard answer to this question:
>
>  http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=357169&cid=21330287
>
> What's the state of the economy elsewhere ? Draconic contracts ?  
> Discussion ?
> (or are you muzzled too)


I signed a mild NDA at my employer, with a lot of unenforceable  
clauses in it in my state.  Also recently had to sign an NDA for a  
customer because we all access customer systems through a Virtual  
machine setup and their idiot lawyers say, "Anyone that touches the  
machine that can access our systems"... even though I'll never access  
that portion of the virtualized machine and never log into their  
systems.  Because I am one of a few people with administrative access  
to that machine farm (to reboot the damn things when they lock up), I  
had to sign on the dotted line.

Particularly entertaining are the clauses about not working for  
competitors, here anyway -- since I live in a "Right to Work" State.   
That's both a blessing and a curse, you can be terminated for damn  
near anything with no legal recourse, but they also can't do a thing  
to you if you go to work for a competitor.

I think the most important thing to note in the Slashdot comments is  
this:  If someone is insane and wants to make you miserable via the  
legal system, they will.

Recently there's been a trend in my industry (I guess the lawyers are  
bored of NDA's about real products, and now want to control thoughts)  
to have employees register whether or not they have "blogs" (no  
kidding, a document I saw actually used that word in a legal context)  
and signing a completely separate NDA about those...

Just remember kids, we're no longer employees, we're all just "Human  
Resources".

--
Nate Duehr
nate@natetech.com
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