Message-ID

hello

i need to find a unique identifier for emails, so that if user A
forwards a message to B, and B to C, and so on... in user Z i can still
know that its the mail user A started.

when user A creates a message, it gets a Message-ID.
i found that most web based mail preserve this ID in some way (some put
it in "In-Reply-To" field, like gmail - when u FWD), others in
"References" header..
But outlook, for instance - totally kills it when i forward..

is there a way to do so? thanks.

Re: Message-ID

yonido@gmail.com wrote:
> hello
>
> i need to find a unique identifier for emails, so that if user A
> forwards a message to B, and B to C, and so on... in user Z i can still
> know that its the mail user A started.
>
> when user A creates a message, it gets a Message-ID.
> i found that most web based mail preserve this ID in some way (some put
> it in "In-Reply-To" field, like gmail - when u FWD), others in
> "References" header..
> But outlook, for instance - totally kills it when i forward..
>
> is there a way to do so? thanks.

There is never a way to *force* this behaviour (from a user or/and
their e-mail client). So it becomes a question of whether most e-mail
clients offer this *functionality*, and it is up to the user whether or
not he uses it.

To answer your specific question: "Outlook" (i.e. any Outlook version
*other than* Outlook Express) or Outlook Express?

If the latter: Do not open the message but right-click on the message
in the message list (upper-right pane) and select "Forward As
Attachment".

If the former: I don't think so. I have only Outlook (2002) in offline
mode (in order to be able to access my old mail archives), but that only
seems to have "Forward", i.e. forward in-line, not "Forward As
Attachment".

I hope this helps somewhat.

Re: Message-ID

yonido@gmail.com wrote:
> hello
>
> i need to find a unique identifier for emails, so that if user A
> forwards a message to B, and B to C, and so on... in user Z i can still
> know that its the mail user A started.
>
> when user A creates a message, it gets a Message-ID.
> i found that most web based mail preserve this ID in some way (some put
> it in "In-Reply-To" field, like gmail - when u FWD), others in
> "References" header..
> But outlook, for instance - totally kills it when i forward..
>
> is there a way to do so? thanks.
>

As you've noticed, the string in the Message-ID: header is not a very
good way to identify emails. It's broken in some server software in that
the software applies the same message id to every outgoing mail.
Other server software may re-write it on the fly, and leave out
references to older message-id headers. Also, quite often the
Message-ID: header will contain forged domain names as part of the string.

The only way to do what you want with any degree of reliability is to
use cryptographic signatures on the message body. This can be done using
S/MIME, PGP, or GNUPG protocols which are all compatible with email. The
person who initiates the message needs to sign it with their private
key. After that anyone down the line who wants to verify the signature
needs the originators public key to verify the signature. To avoid any
intermediate server software from tampering with a signed message body
(thus invalidating the signature), it's best to base64 encode the body
after the signature before sending the message. That last part depends
on the route the message is likely to take. Some servers may tamper with
the message body, others might not. ie: convert the message body to QP
(quoted printable) encoding on the fly.

--
Garen