Who "Owns" Your Computer & Data?

Your reply to radical moderate went to 3 groups. It's easy to miss that when you reply to a cross-poster.

Yup, you are right, I didn't see the cross-posting coming.
Seriously, though, it is EASY to ignore data security fundamentals because "we are small", when just a handful of measures can minimize potential threats.
Say you are a contract designer or mold maker, and you sign a Non- Disclosure Agreement with a customer/client.
If you do NOT keep those customer's materials in private hands and somehow they get out to the public, you eliminate the possibility of your client getting a patent application, if it is development work, plus the competition could jump on the ideas. So do you keep your information "off the net".
I know "insiders" are usually responsible for more violations of NDAs than hackers. However, we are now for the first time getting new employees into business who have lived with computers from the day they were born, so to speak. There are a certain number of those employees inclined to see if they can tweak, 'link up' or 'get through' access restrictions on the net. You can get a "virtual education" on the subject on, where else, the Internet.
The discussion warrants thinking about company policy in a wide range of areas including password requirements (no short passwords or passwords consisting of dictionary entries for a starter, and no written down passwords stored at your desk or under the keyboard). Then comes the issue of how often it is mandated to change your password and how your employees remember or access a password they have forgotten, after it was just changed. Biometrics anyone?
We live in a new world where information of high value is placed within the reach of a single password, or hack job.
My work with others suggests that many networks in small companies don't have tight security policy, & some have no policies written.
This comment sort of summarizes why I started the thread in the first place. SolidWorks users are working with data that is now more valuable than the paper drawings of centuries past, but we are many times not treating the information as such. A single assembly drawing and a few part drawings in the past was of little use in most cases. A flash drive with an assembly and part files can be worth millions. Which brings up the question, are your USB ports locked down, or can anyone insert a flash drive and copy off data on an open computer? Small companies still rely on honesty for most security, by what I see.
Bo

Bo,
My point was, if you were careful, you wound not even have your email system connected. If you collaborate (share client data and sensitive information in a email) or communicate via email you are hooked in, you're vulnerable.
So, you have to move the received and send data from one system to the next, doing adisconnect and reconnect, right?
So, the data is all in your email system, correct?
And, as Dale noted,.. and, sorry but if you are careful, you would have note that there was a cross post.. i.e.,.. not much different than if you had a email with a list of cc's.
.. (forget to put on the latex just once... and it's... whoiz ya daddy!) 8^)

I'll add,.. everyone's email or data is at one time or another on a server some-where before your have the data moved to your local system, correct? And, are the security settings on that server set to fulling delete the data... or is the data saved until a later time to be deleted,.. is that data backed up....
Or,... can something hijack data while it is being transfered via a hardline of a wifi.... ah,...yep!
There is no-way you can be 100% secure!
If someone wants to get into that server or hijack you information.... they can, and they will if they really want too!
..