Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion

Subject: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 05:46 AM

I know there is a restriction in Outlook on being able to recover the BCC field after a message has been sent (allegedly for security reasons) but does anyone know of a way to beat the system so that either I can check in my own computer who I bcc'd stuff to or print the message showing the bcc field (eg before I send it) so that I have a written record of who I bcc'd stuff to?

Next, the current versions of Outlook can I think time-expire emails so they disappear after a while.

Can I stop this happening to emails I have received or do I just have to print them and file the print?

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 05:52 AM

The whole point of bcc is so that recipients can't see the addresses of the other recipients. If there was a quick workaround it would defeat the reason for using it.
But to answer your question about your own mails, I don't use Outlook but at a guess if you look in the Sent mail folder you will be able to see the recipients you have sent mail to whether To:, CC: or BCC:

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: Bernard
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 07:47 AM

Yes, the messages should be in your sent items - or with the email you replied to if in a folder other than the Inbox. You can see the Bcc field, but your recipients cannot. As our guest pointed out, that's the whole point of it.

The 'Autoarchive' system is easy to switch off...

'Tools', 'Options', 'Other' and click on the AutoArchive button. Take the tick out of the 'Autoarchive every' box, apply, and it won't Autoarchive any more.

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 10:18 AM

AutoArchive removes the emails from your active folders, but should move them to an archive folder, from which they can be recovered if you want them later. This is a bit different from simply deleting the emails.

Depending on what kind of email account you have, emails may or may not be stored on your local machine. With a POP3 account, the emails should be actually moved to your machine, where you control whether they're kept in active folders, moved to archive folders, or deleted.

With some other kinds of email accounts, the files are only "on your machine" when you receive them, but are stored only on/at the email service. Older files may have to re-downloaded to look at them, and some services may automatically discard files after a certain time. Once discarded by the service, they are usually not recoverable from the server, so if you want to control how long they're kept you must move them to a local folder on your own machine. (This is almost impossible to do if you use your browser for email access.)

Note that with the standard (free) Hotmail accounts, if you fail to connect and look at your mail for 30 days, the account is closed and all messages that were on the server are inaccessible. There is a grace period during which you can re-activate the account to keep your same email address; but the email messages that were deleted cannot be recovered. There are "premium" hotmail accounts - not free - that don't expire in this way. I would expect similar restrictions on other "free email" accounts, such as gmail; but don't have details on any others.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 10:26 AM

Yes, a couple of crossed wires here.

1. In my own "sent" folder I can see the bcc field showing who I bccd things to. But I can't print the bcc field. So if for example in litigation I needed to prove that a bcc recipient had been sent something, I could not print the email, I'd have to take my computer to the judge or the judge to the computer.

2. I gather that in Outlook these days you can set an expiry date for a message. Once it reaches that age, it disappears (a bit like "Mission Impossible").   So someone could email me a lie and if I didn't print it it would disappear so I could not prove I had been lied to. If there is no way round that I would have to print and file every email received as soon as it arrived.

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 12:57 PM

With Outlook or Outlook Express, once the email is on your local machine, you can copy the entire database folder elsewhere for a permanent archive. I don't know whether in Outlook that would preserve an email that had an expiration date set. To see the files again, one normally has to import them back into Outlook (or OE) so the expiration might execute when the email comes back.

Outlook Help indicates that the sender may set an expiration date for the email to go away. It describes how to set an expiration date, but doesn't give any description that I can find for exactly what happens when the date arrives. (It doesn't say whether you could remove the expiry date for the original in a FWD to yourself(?).)

There is also mention that a "company policy" to delete all email after a certain age can be imposed, but the Help file doesn't say very clearly how/where this rule would be set up.

The only method described for a recipient to "get rid of" emails in bulk clumps is the AutoArchive function, which shouldn't delete them. It should just move them to an archive folder.

In OE, you can use File|Save As to save an email as an individual .eml file. The .eml will include all the attachments, so it's much easier than copying and pasting. The .eml file of course opens in the parent program, so again an expiration date might "erase" everything when you open it. I think that Outlook allows a similar save, probably with a .email filetype since I've received attachments with that extension from some who I think are using Outlook; but I don't have my Outlook setup to check it out.

I think I understand what you're looking for; but I'm not finding simple answers.

I did confirm that my OE does not show BCC addressees even in the Sent folder copy.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 01:04 PM

One possible workaround, is to send your email minus your bcc recipient, then go to your sent mail folder and "forward" it to the bcc recipient as a normal message. I have done this in the past, though usually because I have forgotten to include someone in the original addressee list.

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 01:22 PM

There have been a lot of recent changes in record retention regulations for businesses, and as a result a lot of "buzz" about programs to meet the new regs.

A possible place where you might find "clues" might be the Ziff Davis White Papers Guide

There should be a section for "email" that will link you to a list of "White Papers" on the subject.

Be warned that many of these White Papers are blatent advertising and/or sales pitches for programs, mostly "enterprise level," to "do everything." Some may request an email addy before they'll give you the paper; but many don't. I've looked at a couple that seem at least to give good summaries of what the "requirements" are, and have only run into a few that insist on sending me followup emails after I've looked.

One article I read that was of some interest was titled "Log Law: Is Your Log Data Guilty?" .pdf 234 KB from NetIQ, with an unobtrusive mention of their "NetIQ Security Manager." It gives a "conversational" analysis of what's worth keeping and what isn't, that seemed fairly rational. You may (or not) find it identifiable in the list of WPs.

If you're interested.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 01:55 PM

THank you John, that was interesting.

I don't think I can save from Outlook as an .eml file, I'll have a look at that to see if I've got any unexplored options.....

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 02:03 PM

Good old IE...

1. Thunderbird will print it.

2. I don't know about an expiry date per message but I do use expiry settings for folders in thunderbird, eg. delete messages in a folder more than 30 days old.

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 05:36 PM

I can "save as" a text file - but the bcc line disappears.

Subject: RE: Tech: BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 05:43 PM

Print screen doesn't, and printing before sending still removes the bcc field

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 06:02 PM

Ah-hah! Print screen does not in fact print screen (duh!). It copies it. So, open a blank Word document, open the sent email, shift print screen, navigate to the blank document, paste, print.

Now all I need to know is about those pesky self-erasing files!

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 06:14 PM

Sometimes called "disappearing email".

Allegedly from the Outlook 2003 manuals: -

"Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 offers a new feature, Information Rights
Management (IRM), which helps you prevent sensitive e-mail messages from
getting into the hands of people whom you do not intend to view the
message, whether by accident or carelessness. You can create messages
with restricted permission to help prevent messages from being
forwarded, printed, or copied. If you attach a Microsoft Office 2003
document to a message with restricted permission, the document will be
automatically restricted. However, if permission is already restricted
for the attached document, and then you restrict permission for the
message, the attachment retains its existing permission.

By using Permission on the toolbar, you can restrict permission on an
e-mail message for specific recipients you want to read the message. As
the message sender, you can remove restricted permission from a saved
draft of a message by clicking Permission on the toolbar again.
Recipients can open and read an e-mail message with restricted
permission just as they would a message that doesn't have restricted
permission. If recipients don't have Outlook 2003 or later installed on
their computers, they can download the Rights Management Add-on for
Internet Explorer or another program that supports content with
restricted permission."



Now knowing how much other lawyers lie (not, of course, me) that is scary!

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 01:20 AM

Go to your SENT ITEMS folder.
Right-click on the desired email. Select "Properties".
Select the "Details" tab.
The BCC: field is visible there.
Click on the MESSAGE SOURCE button.
That should call up a notepad-style display of the message including all coding, HTML or otherwise.
Click inside the text box.
Hit Ctrl + A to select the entire text.
Hit Ctrl + C to copy to the clipboard.
You can now paste the entire coding in any word processor or notepad document for printing or archiving.

Though it is doubtful that this will be proof of anything as the text can be easily edited and changed. But at least you'll have an archive of the email for your own info.

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 02:11 AM

If you print this out, get it witnessed and dated by a JP as soon as possible to that date - you at least have a date verified claim of the alleged existence of this email.

Then, of course, you have to be believed that it is not a fabrication - the paper dcument just gives just that - "a physical document".

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: My guru always said
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 03:38 PM

Cluin, I was just about to say the same thing!

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 06:12 PM

Oh Lord (if any) preserve me from barrack-room lawyers and give me the technical input I need.

I will try your latest, thanks, Cluin

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Jan 07 - 04:24 AM

Another thought -

saving all these documents (From: Cluin - Date: 15 Jan 07 - 01:20 AM) regularly to a set of CDRs - each one in the set having all the exisiting content plus all the new stuff till you fill teh CDR and have to start a new set, may not help 'legally' Richard, but you do at least 'establish a trail' of physical documents...

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Jan 07 - 05:03 AM

The real difficulty here is that no matter how you save received emails you have no knowledge of who else got the message if they were BCC recipients.

Even for the sender, printing the file does not show the BCC recipients, however the "properties" on the copy from the "SENT" file does show the BCC addressees. (And I've found it does in OE too.)

Since you can copy the whole email folder, (.pst in Outlook or .dbx in OE) or export (to .ost in Outlook?) an archive of the Sent Items folder should contain the BCC list in Properties for each of the items you sent to BCC recipients. Whether that archive can be opened by any other user or on any other machine, with the BCC idents intact is a bit fuzzy.

Outlook Help indicates that you should be able to use File|Save As to save an individual message, and you can choose from several formats; but it doesn't say what formats can be selected. As I don't have an email messages in my Outlook, the option doesn't appear so that I can look. A Save As "email" should be available, although I can't say what the default file extension would be for that format. The saved file should open in Outlook when you double click it, and look just like something new on the machine; but whether it would preserve the BCC list in properties (assuming a save from the Sent bucket) would have to be verified by someone who uses Outlook.

A test message I sent to my "other user" with myself as BCC, saved from the Sent folder in OE as an "email" with .eml file extension, opens in OE and Properties|Detail for the saved file does show the BCC address. I have verified that the .eml file can be opened on her "different" machine, in her OE, and the BCC address does appear in Properties|Details. Outlook has more "robust" security provisions, so off-machine preservation of BCC idents should be verified.

Attachements I've received from others with .email extensions, (probably from Outlook users), can't be opened by OE, but if I save the attachment and change the file extension to .eml they usually open, which leads me to suspect that's the default when one saves an individual message, as email, from Outlook.

Other than a copy from the Properties box, and paste elsewhere, I haven't found a way to print the BCC addressees, but it does appear they can be saved in the sent email by the sender from the Sent folder.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jan 07 - 06:51 AM

I can answer part of that. If you save a .pst eg to CD (or once it gets too big DVD) then wipe Outlook completely (even by format C)

When you re-install if you simply overwrite the new blank pst file withthe old one you have a complete Outlook back again with ALL the info - except for some reason the address book and signatures!

Therefore if you email that pst file to another they could do the same.

But the idea that the SENDER of an email cannot print his bcc file (except in one of the awkward ways above) is simply crackers.

I think I may spend the £15 on the OUtlook print tools add-on that lets you do it.

Subject: RE: Tech: e-mail BCC fields and message deletion
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Jan 07 - 07:03 AM

Address book(s) and sig files are separate from the email database¹ - in separate folders and in different formats. You can export/import them, just as you can with the email, but it is a separate step (that a lot of people seem to forget when making backups).

¹ Theoretically, any Office program can use your Outlook or OE address book, although it can get messy.

Both Outlook and OE recommend saving addy books as "comma separated variables" (.csv) files for archiving, since the "native" formats aren't importable by other programs - or between the two. Signature files and encrypt keys require some special handling, but I'm not up on the details.

John