Electronic liberties

Peter Ryder's letter serves to highlight one of the problems of electronic communication, but perhaps the situation is not as bleak as he imagines (see [2000] Gazette, 27 July, 20).

He may not know that there is considerably more information attached to an e-mail message than most e-mail programs display.

Typically, an e-mail message is passed around several servers on its way from one computer to another.

Each server adds details to the (hidden) headers on the message.

These usually include a fairly reliable time stamp.

It is generally not difficult to check these headers.

If the problem is overlooking e-mails as a result of date-sorting, as Mr Ryder describes, it might help either to keep the inbox clear by moving read messages to other appropriate folders, or not to sort messages by date.

Altogether more frightening are the electronic liberties which the technically literate may take.

I read computer science alongside law at university, and one of the useful things I learnt (from peers, not from lecturers, I hasten to add) was how to send completely bogus e-mails, purporting to originate from other users.

One can exercise a much higher degree of control over such messages than simply amending the date stamp.

The method is not difficult to learn or execute.

The implications of this I will leave to your imagination.

This underlines one important point: it is much easier to forge electronically rather than physically, and such forgeries are far harder to detect.

By the same token, the nature of the medium makes mass promulgation near instantaneous.

I am very much in favour of the advancement of technology, but in our industry we must by definition favour reliability and authenticity over convenience.

One accepts the contents of electronic missives as gospel at one's own risk.

At the very least, if such communication underpins a firm's information infrastructure, it should ensure firstly that it uses PGP encryption, and secondly that it employs a highly competent system administrator.

If neither of these mean anything to the reader, then it may be prudent to retain 'snail mail' for the time being.

Rob Pomeroy, Ellis & Co, Chester