[Mimedefang] Re: Disclaimers

[Paul Murphy]

>> A header probably would not hold up in court as "legible" which is
>> what I believe the law in UK requires.

>Why not? On a paper document the information is often in the
>(pre-printed) letterhead which is part of the 'header' of the document
>not the 'body'. So the same should apply to email. If you examine the
>'raw' data as sent it is perfectly legible, it is up to the user (by
>choice and/or configuration of email program) whether or not to view
>it. 

Headers are added and removed by the MTA without affecting the meaning of the message.  Also, messages which are encrypted or signed have had that done to them to provide a way of verifying the sender as well as protecting the message, so it is harder to forge the originator details, whereas I could have this:

filter_end()
{
action_delete_header("Organisation");
action_add_header("Organisation","Disney Corp");
}

Now all incoming or outgoing mail appears to be someone else's responsibility.

Attempting to find and remove the company details from a footer in the message text, or from a new MIME part which was added by a remote MTA, is a little more difficult, and also breaks any electronic signature which was computed after the footer was added.

Paul.
-- 

-------------------------------------------------------
Paul Murphy
Head of I.T.
Argenta Discovery
Tel. 01279 645 554
Fax. 01279 645 646