Re: Message-ID

yonido@xxxxxxxxx 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
.

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