Is a Private Appointment Hackable?

[JonMartin]

Is a Private Appointment Hackable?

In the two articles below, Microsoft says you should not rely on the
Private feature to prevent other people from accessing the details of
an appointment. Yet most discussions appear to say Private is indeed
private. Can you weigh in on this?
Thanks,
--Jon


http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP011111491033.aspx

Important If you select the Private check box on a Calendar item in
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, do not grant Read permission to your
Calendar folder to anyone whom you do not want to see private items. A
person who is granted Read permission to access your folders could use
programmatic methods or other e-mail applications to view the details
in a private item.


http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011456981033.aspx

Important You should not rely on the Private feature to prevent other
people from accessing the details of an appointment, contact, or task.
To ensure that other people cannot read the items you marked as
private, do not grant them Read permission to your Calendar, Contacts,
or Tasks folder. A person who is granted Read permission to access your
folders could use programmatic methods or other e-mail applications to
view details in a private item. Use the Private feature only when you
share folders with people whom you trust.

A better way to keep individual appointments private is to create them
on a separate additional calendar. Additional calendars cannot be
shared.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

In the two articles below, Microsoft says you should not rely on the
Private feature to prevent other people from accessing the details of
an appointment. Yet most discussions appear to say Private is indeed
private. Can you weigh in on this?

I haven't tried to hack them, but if MS says the private feature is
hackable I would assume they are right. No reason for them to say that if
it isn't true.

Offhand it makes sense to me that they would be -- the Private flag is
just that, a flag. It's dependent upon the accessing client to respect
that flag. If the client doesn't respect the flag (or won't) then the
contents of the item would likely be viewable.