Read-receipt emails to prove I have sent an email?
Fab
I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
an email?
I have been told that if I do not ask & receive the read-receipt email
back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
prove that my emails has been sent & received.
This is weird as I - as recipient - according to the email client I
use - I can always choose to refuse to send my sender proof that I
have opened their email, pretending never having received it.
I also don't think you can persuade your recipeint Internet provider
to tell if your email is in their mailbox for civil actions, maybe
this can be done via the police if it is a criminal investigation,
isn't it? :-)
All the above just makes me think that faxes are nowadays the only
mean of communication where you can prove having dispatched them (when
you select the "proof of transmission") for free.
The other way is sending a registered paper letter but it's costing $$
Or delivering your correspondence by hand at the recipient office, if
you don't meet a &*(^ employee who refuses to sign a receipt for
you. :-))
Opinions?
Thanks a lot.
Fab
Paul
> Dear all,
>
> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
> an email?
>
> I have been told that if I do not ask & receive the read-receipt email
> back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
> prove that my emails has been sent & received.
>
> This is weird as I - as recipient - according to the email client I
> use - I can always choose to refuse to send my sender proof that I
> have opened their email, pretending never having received it.
>
> I also don't think you can persuade your recipeint Internet provider
> to tell if your email is in their mailbox for civil actions, maybe
> this can be done via the police if it is a criminal investigation,
> isn't it? :-)
>
> All the above just makes me think that faxes are nowadays the only
> mean of communication where you can prove having dispatched them (when
> you select the "proof of transmission") for free.
Faxes arn't worth the paper they are written on - you might have faxed a
blank page, your send scan might be faulty, their ink cartridge, their
paper black etc etc.
Telex is the only definite one afaik
Theo Markettos
> I have been told that if I do not ask & receive the read-receipt email
> back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
> prove that my emails has been sent & received.
>
> This is weird as I - as recipient - according to the email client I
> use - I can always choose to refuse to send my sender proof that I
> have opened their email, pretending never having received it.
And the recipient email system may never support it (eg a big webmail
service) in which case there's no proof either way. If you do receive a
receipt, it's not defined whether a human actually read it or if, say, it
was just delivered to a mailbox that is never read. I suppose someone could
craft a mischeivous gateway that just return-receipts to everyone.
> All the above just makes me think that faxes are nowadays the only
> mean of communication where you can prove having dispatched them (when
> you select the "proof of transmission") for free.
I suppose you can record telephone calls. Does that make them 'durable'
enough? Though you might have difficulty proving who the person on the
other end is (if merely asking them in court isn't sufficient).
Theo
Bernard Peek
> Dear all,
>
> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
> an email?
>
> back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
>
> This is weird as I - as recipient - according to the email client I
> use - I can always choose to refuse to send my sender proof that I
> have opened their email, pretending never having received it.
If the recipient sends a MDN then you have proof that the mail has been
delivered. Not getting an MDN is not proof that the message has not been
delivered.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Owain
> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
> an email?
> I have been told that if I do not ask & receive the read-receipt email
> back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
> prove that my emails has been sent & received.
IANAL.
Personally if I have an important email I send it to the recipient and
CC it to myself.That way I have an incoming email with the headers
showing that the email was sent out from my system.
I could therefore claim that 'in the ordinary course of events' the
email would also be received by the intended recipient. Whether that
is accepted by a court is another matter, but whatever receipt or
logging system you use, all an email is is some electrons and they're
easily rearranged.
Owain
Mark Goodge
keyboard and typed:
>On 25/03/10 17:25, Fab wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
>> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
>> an email?
>>
>> I have been told that if I do not ask& receive the read-receipt email
>> back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
>> prove that my emails has been sent& received.
>>
>> This is weird as I - as recipient - according to the email client I
>> use - I can always choose to refuse to send my sender proof that I
>> have opened their email, pretending never having received it.
>
>If the recipient sends a MDN then you have proof that the mail has been
>delivered.
No; you have proof that it reached a system configured to send a
receipt. That's not proof that it was delivered to the intended
recipient.
>Not getting an MDN is not proof that the message has not been
>delivered.
Indeed.
Mark
--
Free postcodes: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/geopostcode/
Read why: http://mark.goodge.co.uk/musings/422/locate-that-postcode/
Iain
news:811liu...@mid.individual.net...
>
> Faxes arn't worth the paper they are written on - you might have faxed a
> blank page, your send scan might be faulty, their ink cartridge, their
> paper black etc etc.
>
> Telex is the only definite one afaik
With a computer-based program like Winfax Pro, there is no direct scanning
involved in the sending of the fax. The transmission is logged with
relevant details, including the Remote CSID. At the end of the successful
transmission, the appropriate signal is received and logged accordingly.
Providing both your computer clock and phone company clocks are reasonably
accurate, the transmission can be confirmed by your telephone bill.
With modern faxes, if they are unable to print out the fax immediately, they
are able to store it in memory for printing later - some even commit them to
memory even if the printout is registered successful. If the fax is
mal-functioning, it will not send the OK signal at the end of the
transmission.
Therefore with the successful transmission, the log can be printed out,
together with a copy of the page(s) transmitted. I see no reason why that
is not acceptable proof.
In a recent and successful complaint, I stated, "The problem has sometimes
been passed back to the customer (me) to ensure that the fax has been
received. My system and records are very adequate proof - in addition to
the receipt of the 'OK' signal from the recipient fax - of satisfactory
transmission. I should therefore not need to be involved in making sure
that the recipient fax machines are adequate for their purpose, or that
administrative systems are in place, and adequately supervised, to ensure
that the received fax is dealt with appropriately, ie. not 'sat on' or
'lost'
as clearly has happened."
Too many organisations are using the excuse that communications have not
been received, when really it is down to maladministration.
So few organisations now use telex that I wouldn't have thought that it is
even worth considering it a viable option, except maybe internally.
Iain
smr
This is what a court would use for letters. If a letter is sent to an
office during office hours it doesn't matter that the workers are out
at the golf course, they should have read the letter. Whether that
applies for email is untested law. I think it might be increasingly
likely to succeed as email becomes more and more important to
businesses.
Your sent receipt isn't any sort of evidence. You could have literally
typed it yourself, you're always going to have to corroborate it if
you want to rely on it.
Iain
news:6cc56118-e44f-44b1...@u9g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
Too many websites on their 'contact us' page do not allow the option of a
copy to be emailed to yourself. I do not use those. So I phone up the
organisation to either get a fax number or a valid email address. There are
far too many organisations that give the excuse, "We did not receive your
[whatever!]".
Iain
[This may be duplicated - after over 40 minutes, my original post has still
not appeared in the mudiration list.]
Fab
> Fab wrote:
> > Dear all,
>
> Faxes arn't worth the paper they are written on - you might have faxed a
> blank page, your send scan might be faulty, their ink cartridge, their
> paper black etc etc.
>
Fact: your telephony systems records a fax-call to their number for
the time you need to send your pages
Fact: your fax machine (if any) gives you a proof of transmission with
transmission "OK" or "success" (does anyone know what this mean
technically speaking? What the hardware check to say it is ok?)
Now, both whether they cannot read the fax or they misplace, loose,
ignore or trash it; they cannot claim they have not received anything.
They cannot be made liable of not having taken the action you expected
from them but they are liable of having provided you with a
communication mean to contact them which did not work instead,
whatever the reason (technical or human).
I know, they can always claim you must have sent blank pages which
must have been trashed....but - in court - is this credible enough to
let them get away with it?
>
> Telex is the only definite one afaik
What a telex does more than a fax machine to be able to prove delivery
of your A4's?
Cash
Fab,
You could try message tag at http://www.msgtag.com/home/ and this is what it
does:
"Message tags notify you the moment your messages are opened
When your email is viewed at its destination, MSGTAG lets you know. You
receive notification from MSGTAG telling you that your message has been
opened. The notification also details when the message was sent, when it was
viewed, and what the delay has been in between. "
Be aware though that if the recipients blocks HTML in their mail reading
applications then this will not work. I would also suggest that you run a
Google search for this as I seem to remember that there are some security
risks with it.
Cash
If you respond to this post, please do not be offended if there is no reply
as I block all google and gmail posts as a matter of course to prevent spam.
Fab
>
> With a computer-based program like Winfax Pro, there is no direct scanning
> involved in the sending of the fax.
I also use a internet to fax system: no scanning involved from my pdf
to they tif image.
> In a recent and successful complaint, I stated, "The problem has sometimes
> been passed back to the customer (me) to ensure that the fax has been
> received. My system and records are very adequate proof - in addition to
> the receipt of the 'OK' signal from the recipient fax - of satisfactory
> transmission. I should therefore not need to be involved in making sure
> that the recipient fax machines are adequate for their purpose, or that
> administrative systems are in place, and adequately supervised, to ensure
> that the received fax is dealt with appropriately, ie. not 'sat on' or
> 'lost'
> as clearly has happened."
Why? did they argue that you should have ensured by phone (i.e.)
whether they did receive your fax/not?
>
> Too many organisations are using the excuse that communications have not
> been received, when really it is down to maladministration.
>
Yeah my experience too.
Paul
familiar with - is irrelevant - legally..
At the recipient end - it may be a plain paper thermal fax...if you
place the paper in upside down - it will record nothing at all..
Or if the thermal head fails..or if the ink head is jammed..
Yet your end says 'sent'
A CSID is programmed in by a user .. YOU could have any old fax machine
plugged in in the office next door - and dial the extension - your
transaction will show the CSID you entered - so meaningless in
evidence..you sent it SOMEWHERE that answered the CSID expected..
So you could easily fake a transmission..without the possibilty that you
might just hack Winfax Pro logs and insert any data you like.
Sorry, but Fax is just not a '100 % confirmed' transmission method.
Whereas Telex was desiged to be - do not confirm unless ..
ink ok
paper ok
equipment ok
identity ok
I used to work on them - NOTHING would be transmitted unless 100%
guarantee message viewable..and if on .00001% chance of failure -
transmitters version taken as gospel...
(The only possible mode of failure with 'transmission succesful' would
be ink ribbon failed - and the operator had loaded one part paper - but
as accepted mode was impact printing and carbon paper - there should
still have been a carbon copy created by the impact.)
Paul
> On 25 Mar, 17:25, Fab wrote:
>> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
>> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
>> an email?
>> back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
>
> IANAL.
>
> Personally if I have an important email I send it to the recipient and
> CC it to myself.That way I have an incoming email with the headers
> showing that the email was sent out from my system.
>
> I could therefore claim that 'in the ordinary course of events' the
> email would also be received by the intended recipient. Whether that
> is accepted by a court is another matter, but whatever receipt or
> logging system you use, all an email is is some electrons and they're
> easily rearranged.
>
> Owain
>
>
>
Email logs are trivial to fake.
Did you really send it when you said.. only your logs say so..
A very trivial way of doing this which will pass superficial inspection
is to write to:
to: spuorg...@gowanhill.com.
Bcc: m...@mysaddress.com
First will bounce, never sent, copy arrives to me, wonder why.
And then:
Did they receive it.. who knows.. many intelligent spam filtering
systems don't bounce messages - that gives spammers a clue WHY..so they
just discard them - your recipient might just bin all emails from
'Owain' unread..
Sending it and proving it are different things
Jan Hyde
on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:25:04 +0000 bearing the following
fruit:
You can always prove an e-mail was sent but you can never
prove it was received. And it's no different with snail mail
unless the intended recipient signed for the mail.
Not that this matters in law, what the law says is what
matters. I don't know how it will pan out but e-mail can be
lost or blocked for so many reasons that there would always
be reasonable level of doubt in my mind about an e-mail
reaching it's destination.
--
Jan Hyde
Ian Chard
> Dear all,
>
> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
> an email?
>
> I have been told that if I do not ask & receive the read-receipt email
> back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
> prove that my emails has been sent & received.
>
> This is weird as I - as recipient - according to the email client I
> use - I can always choose to refuse to send my sender proof that I
> have opened their email, pretending never having received it.
>
> I also don't think you can persuade your recipeint Internet provider
> to tell if your email is in their mailbox for civil actions, maybe
> this can be done via the police if it is a criminal investigation,
You may be able to convince your ISP to release a log extract showing
that the email was received from you and forwarded to the recipient's
mail system (or run your own email service and get the log extract
yourself, if you are technically inclined). This doesn't show that the
recipient actually received and read the message, but it might be enough
to tip the balance of probabilities.
- Ian
--
Ian Chard, Senior Unix and Network Gorilla | E: ian....@sers.ox.ac.uk
Systems and Electronic Resources Service | T: 80587 / (01865) 280587
Oxford University Library Services | F: (01865) 242287
Allan
> Dear all,
>
> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
> an email?
[snip]
IANAL
This seems to me to be a discussion about whether what is sent actually
arrives (and verges on the philosophical), and although the OP specified
e-mail, it could apply to snail-mail. If I send a Special Delivery
letter to Widget Co, I can prove I sent an item (assuming it's signed
for on the other end), but how can anyone prove what was in the envelope
that was allegedly delivered? At the end of the day, I suppose it's
open to interpretation (by the court, if applicable). e.g. did I
really put item 'A' in that Special Delivery envelope, or did I put
something else in, and if so, should one rely on that item 'A' as being
delivered?
Bernard Peek
> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:50:04 +0000, Bernard Peek put finger to
> keyboard and typed:
>
>> On 25/03/10 17:25, Fab wrote:
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
>>> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
>>> an email?
>>>
>>> I have been told that if I do not ask& receive the read-receipt email
>>> back ("your recipient has opened you email" message) then I cannot
>>> prove that my emails has been sent& received.
>>>
>>> This is weird as I - as recipient - according to the email client I
>>> use - I can always choose to refuse to send my sender proof that I
>>> have opened their email, pretending never having received it.
>>
>> If the recipient sends a MDN then you have proof that the mail has been
>> delivered.
>
> No; you have proof that it reached a system configured to send a
> receipt. That's not proof that it was delivered to the intended
> recipient.
That's true but it's no different to sending a letter. You may have
proof of delivery but that's not proof that anyone reads it or acts on
it. In fact all you need is proof of delivery. If the recipient throws
the message away before reading it then it's their problem and their
responsibility.
In reality it will depend a lot on the technologies involved. Email
systems in large organisations will have logs that can be searched.
Existence of an MDN should be sufficient evidence to get a search warrant.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Iain
news:f928e5d2-dc59-4eaf...@l36g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
On Mar 26, 12:50 am, "Iain" <s...@smaps.net> wrote:
>
> With a computer-based program like Winfax Pro, there is no direct scanning
> involved in the sending of the fax.
I also use a internet to fax system: no scanning involved from my pdf
to they tif image.
> In a recent and successful complaint, I stated, "The problem has sometimes
> been passed back to the customer (me) to ensure that the fax has been
> received. My system and records are very adequate proof - in addition to
> the receipt of the 'OK' signal from the recipient fax - of satisfactory
> transmission. I should therefore not need to be involved in making sure
> that the recipient fax machines are adequate for their purpose, or that
> administrative systems are in place, and adequately supervised, to ensure
> that the received fax is dealt with appropriately, ie. not 'sat on' or
> 'lost'
> as clearly has happened."
Why? did they argue that you should have ensured by phone (i.e.)
whether they did receive your fax/not?
==================
Even within their own organisation they at one stage made people phone up to
confirm 'satisfactory' receipt of the fax. My understanding was (from my
point of view), unless you phoned, anything could happen to it - and it
obviously did.
Iain
==================
Iain
news:812ej6...@mid.individual.net...
I don't think that you can completely disregard faxes - it would very much
depend upon the circumstances, credibility of witness, etc. We even hear of
'signed for' items having drivers fake the signatures. Recorded delivery
items do not necessarily have to contain the correct documents, or even
contain any documents at all.
I used to run a telex dept in the early 70s. In the 80s I did some telex
temping at an oil company in the city and the telexes were normally stored
before sending, as I believe also before being printed out. With that
system, the delay simply did not allow for ink, paper, etc to be checked.
So presumably those also had a logging system which, again presumably, an
able person could also hijack. But as I said above, very few organisations
now use telex. But surely it also very much depends upon what you are
trying to send - it could be a simple message, it could be documents. I
haven't used a telex now for over a couple of decades - maybe you can send
documents over the telex now?
Now of course, whatever method you use externally, communications within the
recipient organisation are often a major factor in the overall
communications process, whether it is email, fax or telex. So again it
might also be down to the circumstances, eg. whether receipt to the
organisation is adequate, or to the specific person.
I have never personally considered email as a method of formal and business
communication anyway - more of a casual method. I never return confirmation
of receipts or opening anyway.
Iain
Iain
news:6cc56118-e44f-44b1...@u9g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
Too many websites on their 'contact us' page do not allow the option of a
The Todal
> Dear all,
>
> I know that emails are legally binding in UK (as written letters)
> however, what British law says about the proof of having transmitted
> an email?
In general, there is no rule. However the courts accept that communications
can be sent by email and there is no requirement to prove (other than by
saying that you sent it) that you sent the communication. As with any
letter, the recipient may say they didn't receive it so you should always
try to obtain an acknowledgement that your communication was received and if
there is any doubt, send it again or by a different method.
There are some specific rules about service by email and fax here:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/civil/procrules_fin/contents/practice_directions/pd_part06.htm#IDAQOVQ
Iain
news:813epk...@mid.individual.net...
> "Fab" <newspo...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> Why? did they argue that you should have ensured by phone (i.e.)
> whether they did receive your fax/not?
>
> ==================
>
> Even within their own organisation they at one stage made people phone up
> to
> confirm 'satisfactory' receipt of the fax. My understanding was (from my
> point of view), unless you phoned, anything could happen to it - and it
> obviously did.
>
> Iain
>
> ==================
I forgot to mention that within a Subject Access Request an internal memo
showed that fax logs were not being used at their end. Needless to say,
maladministration was not difficult to prove (without even mentioning their
lack of logs), and was subsequently admitted. I quoted my fax log in order
to prove a trend, as well as to prove the sending of specific letters, at
specific times and to specific numbers. These would have been backed up by
my phone records. Despite me asking several times if they wanted to see
copies of my logs, I have yet to be asked to provide them. In these
circumstances therefore the existance of the logs and their accuracy have
been accepted, without even having to provide them. I may still be asked to
provide them though.
Iain
Paul
Depend on what other evidence you have and the credibity of both parties.
Say you order 100,000 widgets off me for delivery and payment April
30th. You send me a written order, and part of the conditions are that
you can cancel the order up until April 15th.
On April 15th you realise that you might not want the 100,000 as a
project hasn't been given the go ahead, but are unsure - it might happen.
So you fax me a blank piece of paper (clearing your own CSID and
witholding your own phone number) which I duely bin as untraceable, yet
you have the 'evidence' detailed above.
When the 30th comes you can then say 'cancelled those on 15th, didn't
you get my fax' if you don't want parts...or accept delivery if you need
them...
Who does a court beleive when deciding the matter - well clearly they
cannot accept solely the fax - I just demonstrated how easy it was to fake.
Only one way to decide - FIGHT! ;-)
Oh - another reason fax was always considered bad practice for
communications - thermal paper fades within a couple of years or so -
well below the six years recommended for keeping records.
>>
>> Telex is the only definite one afaik
>
> What a telex does more than a fax machine to be able to prove delivery
> of your A4's?
>
>
Telex is more a case of two typewriters hardwired together - once a
connection is made (and connection is secure - you connect to the number
you select or not at all - no fake transmission possible).
When you type on one - it prints on both yours and theirs, mistakes as well.
When you connect, the handshakes between machines are recorded at both
ends on paper, identical copies of anything sent will be present at both
ends.
This might be typical exchange
Dialing 54678
Connected to 54678
Hello this is x, is that y, ok to send?
Hello this is y, go ahead x
Message begins
Please send 3 bags coal.
Message ends
Disconnect
If a text document is included, it is printed verbatim at both ends.
The thing you have to get your head around is the simultaneous printing
aspect, both ends print each character at the same moment, so if the
line goes down or there is a failure of hardware - both printouts end on
the same charac.....
So there can be no doubt in message receipt - if you hold up your
trancript of a message in court it would prove exactly to the full stop
what a message said or didn't said, and your copy would be perfect evidence.
The whole telex network was very strictly regulated by BT and its
predessesor GPO - equipment vetted, premises licensed, only BT
technicians could alter identity settings (csid).
S.P.
> Meaningless sorry..
>
> Email logs are trivial to fake.
Depends on one's definition of "Email logs". A full SMTP transcript from
the sender's server would not be "trivial to fake".
> Did you really send it when you said.. only your logs say so..
With SMTP transcripts, there are several elements of data provided by the
recipient's server. So, whilst the sender is providing the logs as
evidence, the recipient has provided some of the content included therein
and that would not be "trivial to fake".
If I had to argue this point in court, I would say it is analogous to a
letter send recorded delivery. On request, one is provided with proof of
delivery in the form of a signature.
The recipient can still argue that isn't their signature, but I do not
believe the court would hold such evidence were "trivial to fake".
Additionally, I believe the burden of proof would now have shifted to the
recipient.
I hold the same to be true for e-mails. In fact, I believe it would be a
trivial matter to demonstrate to the Court that an SMTP transcript is
anything but "trivial to fake".
> A very trivial way of doing this which will pass superficial
> inspection is to write to:
> to: spuorg...@gowanhill.com.
> Bcc: m...@mysaddress.com
>
> First will bounce, never sent, copy arrives to me, wonder why.
An SMTP transcript would show an error code for the first RCPT command, and
would therefore be unlikely to be entered into evidence by the sender. On
the other hand, the recipient would find such an entry in their logs of
great evidential value.
> And then:
>
> Did they receive it..
If the recipient's server tells the sender's server that the transmission
took place successfully, then it received it.
What happens to it after delivery is in the control of the recipient, not
the sender, therefore it is the recipient that is liable, not the sender.
Again, perhaps an analogy with the postal system will help.
Assume I place a waste paper basket under my letter box, which I empty into
my wheelie bin on a daily basis without checking the contents.
At some stage, I will expect bailiffs to knock on my door chasing several
unpaid bills. One of those is likely to be for my Council Tax. I do not
believe that showing the bailiffs the bin behind my door and explaining how
I empty it into my wheelie bin each day will enable me to avoid my
liabilities.
Furthermore, I do not believe that showing photographs of same to the Court
would be likely to assist me in any way.
Similarly, I do not believe that telling the Court than my e-mail system
successfully received an e-mail, but that it is set up to discard them will
enable me to escape any liabilities arising therefrom.
> who knows...
The sending and receiving servers both know.
> many intelligent spam filtering
> systems don't bounce messages - that gives spammers a
> clue WHY..so they just discard them
I think you mean "many non-compliant spam filtering systems..." RFC821 is
clear. If the receiving server sends a 250 after the MAIL command, a 250
after the RCPT command and a 250 at the end of the DATA exchange then it has
accepted the mail for delivery to the recipient.
If, having told the sender's server, it is going to deliver the message, the
recipient's server then does the technological equivalent of throwing it in
the bin, I would assert that the problem of non-delivery rests with the
recipient and not the sender.
Additionally, spammers do not check SMTP transcripts. Their model operates
on the principle of high volume, low cost. Analysing SMTP transcripts takes
time and costs money.
Ergo, a spam filtering system that attempts to justify its non-compliance in
this manner could not be accurately described as "intelligent".
> your recipient might just bin all emails from
> 'Owain' unread..
As I might bin all letters received my local council unopened. When I'm
summonsed for non-payment of my Council Tax, I don't expect that to be a
line of reasoning the Court will accept.
> Sending it and proving it are different things
Respectfully, I disagree in the strongest possible terms.
Regards
S.P.
S.P.
> Depend on what other evidence you have and the credibity of both
> parties.
Each case is decided on its facts, so that should be a given.
> Say you order 100,000 widgets off me for delivery and payment April
> 30th. You send me a written order, and part of the conditions are that
> you can cancel the order up until April 15th.
I hope "the conditions" clearly set out the terms under which I may cancel
the order and whether or not my cancellation needs to be acknowledged to be
valid.
If they don't, I think you'd be looking to the person responsible for
drafting "the conditions" should it all go south.
> On April 15th you realise that you might not want the 100,000 as a
> project hasn't been given the go ahead, but are unsure - it might
> happen.
> So you fax me a blank piece of paper (clearing your own CSID and
> witholding your own phone number) which I duely bin as untraceable,
> yet you have the 'evidence' detailed above.
If you're relying on the receipt (or not!) of a fax to cancel an order of up
100,000 widgets, then I'd hope your system is a little more secure than
this.
For example, most modern fax systems are computerised. In addition to
providing the time / date stamp and CSID of the sender, they keep the
received fax in electronic format. There's no "blank piece of paper" to
throw away. Given the urgent nature of the fax, I'd expect you to be using
a fax to e-mail gateway so the fax arrives in somebody's Inbox within a few
minutes of being received.
> When the 30th comes you can then say 'cancelled those on 15th, didn't
> you get my fax' if you don't want parts...or accept delivery if you
> need them...
At which point it would be trivially simple to pull up the log of received
faxes for the 15th, check the time you claim you sent the fax and see that
nothing more than a blank page was received.
When I challenge you on this, you say you definitely sent the cancellation
so I ask you to fax another copy of it. You've done your homework, and have
it ready to send over.
At that point, I check the duration of the two fax transmissions.
For, you see, a blank page is transmitted much quicker than a page with lots
of black on it. If the second page took longer to come through, it would be
obvious you were up to something.
Additionally, should it get that far, I'd point out to the Court that the
CSID was cleared on the first fax received so it was clear you were "up to
no good".
Finally, fax transmission has a element of error checking built in so it
isn't possible to send a page full of text and for a blank page to be
received without an error being sent.
> Who does a court beleive when deciding the matter - well clearly they
> cannot accept solely the fax - I just demonstrated how easy it was to
> fake. Only one way to decide - FIGHT! ;-)
Depending on the cost of the 100,000 widgets, it might not even make it to
court. If it did, and in the right circumstances, I'd have a sworn copy of
the fax log and expert testimony on how difficult it is to tamper with the
log. I'd also engage an expert in fax technology to demonstrate the points
above on transmission times and built in error checking if you hadn't
conceded before we got to court.
> Oh - another reason fax was always considered bad practice for
> communications - thermal paper fades within a couple of years or so -
> well below the six years recommended for keeping records.
Does anybody still use thermal paper faxes these days?
<snip lots of excellent information on the Telex system - didn't want to
snip it without acknowledging it.>
Hope you don't mind me playing Devil's Advocate?
Regards
S.P.
The Todal
(I have re-submitted this post because for some reason it didn't reach the
moderation queue the first time)
Sara
Paul <paul...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I worked in a few companies back in the lates 70s that used telex, and
I'm not convinced that they were unfakeable.
In offline mode you can type anything you want and it just types onto
the page. To fake a telex printout that appears to show the answerback
from a remote machine was as trivial as turning the ink ribbon upside
down (to print red rather than black) and then back again. I can't see
how it would be provable whose copy of a telex showed the original
information.
This is all over 30 years ago now, so my memory may be incorrect but I'm
pretty sure that was possible.
--
Sara
Hurrah - the weather has cheered up
Paul
> I worked in a few companies back in the lates 70s that used telex, and
> I'm not convinced that they were unfakeable.
>
> In offline mode you can type anything you want and it just types onto
> the page. To fake a telex printout that appears to show the answerback
> from a remote machine was as trivial as turning the ink ribbon upside
> down (to print red rather than black) and then back again. I can't see
> how it would be provable whose copy of a telex showed the original
> information.
>
> This is all over 30 years ago now, so my memory may be incorrect but I'm
> pretty sure that was possible.
>
Its been twenty years since I last worked on one but there were
safeguards against this - the recipient machine generated a code for
each message - which if you didn't have on your made up offline message
- it could be trivially shown to be fake.
It might pass muster within an office, but a tecnician would easy
disprove its validity.
Sara
Paul <paul...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I don't recall those codes, but as I say, after 30 years the memory is
not as good as it was.
Paul
> Paul wrote:
>
>> Meaningless sorry..
>>
>> Email logs are trivial to fake.
>
> Depends on one's definition of "Email logs". A full SMTP transcript from
> the sender's server would not be "trivial to fake".
>
server in the office - mail from me goes to that server then directly to
the receving server of the recipient.
Mail in and out in is logged in /var/log/exim/main.log and is a text
file, thus easily changed - date file modified also easily changed back
for complete track coverage.
If the recipient is a hotmail address, I doubt the recipient would
easily be able to retrieve a similar log from hotmail to dispute any
assertion I make.
If of course they run their own pop/imap server, their log files would
tell a different story to mine ;-)
>
>> Did you really send it when you said.. only your logs say so..
>
> With SMTP transcripts, there are several elements of data provided by the
> recipient's server. So, whilst the sender is providing the logs as
> evidence, the recipient has provided some of the content included therein
> and that would not be "trivial to fake".
>
With a hotmail address, I'm sure I could cut and paste enough realistic
looking dat from another transaction to fake it. I would rely on Hotmail
being disinterested in providing their logs.
> If I had to argue this point in court, I would say it is analogous to a
> letter send recorded delivery. On request, one is provided with proof of
> delivery in the form of a signature.
>
> The recipient can still argue that isn't their signature, but I do not
> believe the court would hold such evidence were "trivial to fake".
> Additionally, I believe the burden of proof would now have shifted to the
> recipient.
>
> I hold the same to be true for e-mails. In fact, I believe it would be a
> trivial matter to demonstrate to the Court that an SMTP transcript is
> anything but "trivial to fake".
>
Just proved above ;-)
>
>> A very trivial way of doing this which will pass superficial
>> inspection is to write to:
>> to: spuorg...@gowanhill.com.
>> Bcc: m...@mysaddress.com
>>
>> First will bounce, never sent, copy arrives to me, wonder why.
>
> An SMTP transcript would show an error code for the first RCPT command, and
> would therefore be unlikely to be entered into evidence by the sender. On
> the other hand, the recipient would find such an entry in their logs of
> great evidential value.
>
As shown above, I can hack my smtp logs, I doubt wheter they even have
access to theirs to argue.
>> And then:
>>
>> Did they receive it..
>
> If the recipient's server tells the sender's server that the transmission
> took place successfully, then it received it.
>
> What happens to it after delivery is in the control of the recipient, not
> the sender, therefore it is the recipient that is liable, not the sender.
No, plenty of servers act as gateways or relays - I have a MX backup in
America that will happily accept your mail for me, I might never see it.
Its like giving it to the xmas boyscout delivery service, they might
accept it, but your Christmas card to Mum might never get there..despite
you having a receipt.
>
> Again, perhaps an analogy with the postal system will help.
>
> Assume I place a waste paper basket under my letter box, which I empty into
> my wheelie bin on a daily basis without checking the contents.
>
> At some stage, I will expect bailiffs to knock on my door chasing several
> unpaid bills. One of those is likely to be for my Council Tax. I do not
> believe that showing the bailiffs the bin behind my door and explaining how
> I empty it into my wheelie bin each day will enable me to avoid my
> liabilities.
>
> Furthermore, I do not believe that showing photographs of same to the Court
> would be likely to assist me in any way.
>
> Similarly, I do not believe that telling the Court than my e-mail system
> successfully received an e-mail, but that it is set up to discard them will
> enable me to escape any liabilities arising therefrom.
Yes, my point is not that a court will won't find in senders favour for
the types of communication you describe above, and possibly for email,
but purely that it is not a 100% guaranteed method of transmission and
cannot be relied on and depending on the case enough oil can be added if
useful to cloud the issue.
In the case above money is owed, a court will probably accept 'I shouted
thru his letterbox' as a valid demand.
I am thinking more of the case where a special offer like 'email us
before 6pm tonight for half price laptop' - your email does not reach
their sales department.
They will be able to show they received x emails and dispatched x
laptops, your email was never seen.
No matter how many smtp transcripts you include, I doubt any court would
find that your bargain needs to be supplied.
>> who knows...
>
> The sending and receiving servers both know.
>
>
>> many intelligent spam filtering
>> systems don't bounce messages - that gives spammers a
>> clue WHY..so they just discard them
>
> I think you mean "many non-compliant spam filtering systems..." RFC821 is
> clear. If the receiving server sends a 250 after the MAIL command, a 250
> after the RCPT command and a 250 at the end of the DATA exchange then it has
> accepted the mail for delivery to the recipient.
I am not au fait with protocols - and only a little with implementation
- but in one case my Exim can be used to discard messages during the
receipt process - scanning for spam in headers etc then dumping. Another
is to receive and then reject. I don't know whether these methods are
'compliant' but they are 'common'.
Also, I have one server which receives all email and forwards it to
other servers on the network - it is entirely possible for a message has
been accepted for relaying in the method above. It is then equally
possible for the next server in the chain to reject that message -
again, possibly just discarding it.
>
> If, having told the sender's server, it is going to deliver the message, the
> recipient's server then does the technological equivalent of throwing it in
> the bin, I would assert that the problem of non-delivery rests with the
> recipient and not the sender.
This is akin to me telling Reader Digest not to deliver any more junk
mail or correnspondence - it all goes in the bin.
I would argue that the fact that they posted it is meaningless as my
BS5750 registration requires me to follow the same procedure everytime -
that important letter/email they wanted was binned ;-)
>
> Additionally, spammers do not check SMTP transcripts. Their model operates
> on the principle of high volume, low cost. Analysing SMTP transcripts takes
> time and costs money.
Possibly, but you are now talking high volume throw it out and who cares.
I am a 'spammer', and I can assure you its worth the time and effort to
look at logs. I might only send out a couple of thousand emails to
companies I have dealt with before - but its worth trawling the logs and
bounced messages to find out WHY..if my message isn't getting to 200
potential customers because I have used a spam phrase or keyword, it
gets changed for next time.
>
> Ergo, a spam filtering system that attempts to justify its non-compliance in
> this manner could not be accurately described as "intelligent".
>
No, as I have argued above - it is not intelligent to
1) Send a bounce to a spammer telling them why
2) Accept all email unreservedly
3) Tell anyone 'delivered succesfully
Anything that doesn't do this is 'intelligent'.
>
>
>> Sending it and proving it are different things
>
> Respectfully, I disagree in the strongest possible terms.
And so do I, you'll never prove with technology that I received your
email - you might win on 'beyond reasonable doubt' or 'doesn't really
matter all you needed to do was send it somehow, his fault if never
arrived on his screen' but you won't have proved 100% it went or was
received.
>
> Regards
>
> S.P.
>
And to best regards to you
P
Paul
> Paul wrote:
>
>> Depend on what other evidence you have and the credibity of both
>> parties.
>
> Each case is decided on its facts, so that should be a given.
>
>
>> Say you order 100,000 widgets off me for delivery and payment April
>> 30th. You send me a written order, and part of the conditions are that
>> you can cancel the order up until April 15th.
>
> I hope "the conditions" clearly set out the terms under which I may cancel
> the order and whether or not my cancellation needs to be acknowledged to be
> valid.
>
> If they don't, I think you'd be looking to the person responsible for
> drafting "the conditions" should it all go south.
Well of course, but anyone still using fax would have to be balmy -
being so archaic and superceded - but we came to this point with some
long forgotton poster above arguing that faxes were 'only acceptable
method of transmission that proved transmission' - if they truly think
this then they probable woulf be happy with a faxed order or cancellation..
>
>
>> On April 15th you realise that you might not want the 100,000 as a
>> project hasn't been given the go ahead, but are unsure - it might
>> happen.
>> So you fax me a blank piece of paper (clearing your own CSID and
>> witholding your own phone number) which I duely bin as untraceable,
>> yet you have the 'evidence' detailed above.
>
> If you're relying on the receipt (or not!) of a fax to cancel an order of up
> 100,000 widgets, then I'd hope your system is a little more secure than
> this.
See point above
>
> For example, most modern fax systems are computerised. In addition to
> providing the time / date stamp and CSID of the sender, they keep the
> received fax in electronic format. There's no "blank piece of paper" to
> throw away. Given the urgent nature of the fax, I'd expect you to be using
> a fax to e-mail gateway so the fax arrives in somebody's Inbox within a few
> minutes of being received.
>
I don't agree .. I think fax is now the vinyl equivalent of the mp3 -
you either stick with it because you know no better or refuse to change
or you dump it and go to email. Why have a fax system on a perfectly
good pc with email and attachments other than to send to people with no
computer? In which case they probably have an ancient thermal fax with
no safeguards.
I haven't sent or received (or had anyone ask to send me a fax) in the
last five or more years of business. I uninstalled Winfax Pro, oh, who
knows - it was on 10 and XP might have just come in.
I used to send a lot of faxshots - I doubt my database of numbers would
have many valid numbers left now ;-)
Anyway, the point is that if it arrives in a computer, yes, there will
be a blank page (with no csid and caller id) but we were talking
obfuscating delivery - if the widget orderer was trying to be devious,
he'd probably know that the recipient he wished to scam had a old
thermal fax in the corner... you choose your victims with care, not blindly.
>
>> When the 30th comes you can then say 'cancelled those on 15th, didn't
>> you get my fax' if you don't want parts...or accept delivery if you
>> need them...
>
> At which point it would be trivially simple to pull up the log of received
> faxes for the 15th, check the time you claim you sent the fax and see that
> nothing more than a blank page was received.
>
se last point
> When I challenge you on this, you say you definitely sent the cancellation
> so I ask you to fax another copy of it. You've done your homework, and have
> it ready to send over.
>
> At that point, I check the duration of the two fax transmissions.
>
> For, you see, a blank page is transmitted much quicker than a page with lots
> of black on it. If the second page took longer to come through, it would be
> obvious you were up to something.
Last time I dealt with fax, negligible - most of the time to send is
handshaking hello goodbye - a blank page 28 seconds, a typr written page
30 secs.
Fax works on changes - this line same as the one above - do it again
This line has these marks in these positions.
This line has marks, these ones are different from line before.
You'd be surprised how little difference there is A4 text to blank
transmission time.
>
> Additionally, should it get that far, I'd point out to the Court that the
> CSID was cleared on the first fax received so it was clear you were "up to
> no good".
>
I don't have a csid on my machine, m'lud, its used for several of my
companies and I don't like the wrong name on wrong doc.
> Finally, fax transmission has a element of error checking built in so it
> isn't possible to send a page full of text and for a blank page to be
> received without an error being sent.
>
If I increase the flourescent tube wattage, the machine will sent a
white page..if I take the tube out - it sends a black one - used to be
good for breaking rival company machines ;-)
>
>> Who does a court beleive when deciding the matter - well clearly they
>> cannot accept solely the fax - I just demonstrated how easy it was to
>> fake. Only one way to decide - FIGHT! ;-)
>
> Depending on the cost of the 100,000 widgets, it might not even make it to
> court. If it did, and in the right circumstances, I'd have a sworn copy of
> the fax log and expert testimony on how difficult it is to tamper with the
> log. I'd also engage an expert in fax technology to demonstrate the points
> above on transmission times and built in error checking if you hadn't
> conceded before we got to court.
>
Your log and my log would show a page sent and received..if only you
operator hadn't of thrown the page away...
>
>> Oh - another reason fax was always considered bad practice for
>> communications - thermal paper fades within a couple of years or so -
>> well below the six years recommended for keeping records.
>
> Does anybody still use thermal paper faxes these days?
Yes, everyone keeps one in a cupboard somewhere in case.
Viking and Staples still list plenty off it ;-)
>
> <snip lots of excellent information on the Telex system - didn't want to
> snip it without acknowledging it.>
>
> Hope you don't mind me playing Devil's Advocate?
>
No, all good fun ;-)
> Regards
>
> S.P.
>
>
Mark Goodge
keyboard and typed:
>On 25/03/10 20:40, Mark Goodge wrote:
>> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:50:04 +0000, Bernard Peek put finger to
>> keyboard and typed:
>>
>>> If the recipient sends a MDN then you have proof that the mail has been
>>> delivered.
>>
>> No; you have proof that it reached a system configured to send a
>> receipt. That's not proof that it was delivered to the intended
>> recipient.
>
>That's true but it's no different to sending a letter. You may have
>proof of delivery but that's not proof that anyone reads it or acts on
>it. In fact all you need is proof of delivery. If the recipient throws
>the message away before reading it then it's their problem and their
>responsibility.
Yes, but with a letter that's what matters. Letters are delivered to
addresses, not to people, and proof of delivery to the destination
address is sufficient should the matter go to court and aforesaid
delivery is relevent to the case. But an email return receipt is not
proof of delivery to the destination address, as it could have been
generated by any intervening system through which the email passed.
Moreover, a signed acceptance of delivery for a physical letter is
generated by a human, who can be held respopnsible for that
acceptance. An email return receipt can be generated entirely
automatically without any human intervention or even awareness.
Mark
--
Free postcodes: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/geopostcode/
Read why: http://mark.goodge.co.uk/musings/422/locate-that-postcode/