Time, [Ladies and] Gentlemen, Time! [Was Re: Email as legal evidence]

[Luis M. Huesch]

[Time & Again]

----------
> From: Rachel Polanskis <rachel@juno.virago.org.au>
> To: Roger Clarke <Roger.Clarke@anu.edu.au>
> Cc: link list <link@charlotte.anu.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: Time, [Ladies and] Gentlemen, Time! [Was Re: Email as legal
evidence]
> Date: Saturday, November 23, 1996 12:22 PM
> 
> Roger Clarke writes:
> > 
> > Jennifer Cram wrote:
> > >Interesting sideline to this one, I have just noticed that emails I
send
> > >from Queensland are "datestamped" one hour later than they were sent -
we
> > >aren't on daylight saving though the rest of the Eastern States in the
> > >same time zone are.....
> > 
> > This is a widespread and seldom-discussed problem.

<snip>

To bring this back to the issue of tender legality:
One must assume therefore that in an evidence case, little weight will
attach to those user-supplied time-stamps but rather more to those supplied
by the ISP servers and other 'hops' along the way...in all their ugly
full-header glory!

But wait: I recently received an e-mail at night from a student daughter --
who's working evening shifts at a Sydney law firm that uses Telemail via
sprint.com -- detailing a horrid statistics exam on that MONDAY morning but
which was profusely time-stamped thus:

X400-Received: by /PRMD=LANGATE/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/; Relayed; Sun, 17 Nov
1996 22:31:00 -0500
X400-Received: by /PRMD=LANGATE/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/; Relayed; Sun, 17 Nov
1996 22:31:00 -0500
X400-Received: by /PRMD=LANGATE/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/; Relayed; Sun, 17 Nov
1996 22:31:00 -0500
X400-Received: by /PRMD=LANGATE/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/; Relayed; Sun, 17 Nov
1996 22:31:00 -0500
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 22:31:00 -0500
X400-Originator: GiannaL.Huesch@XXXX.SMJARDIN.LANGATE.sprint.com
X400-MTS-Identifier: [/PRMD=LANGATE/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/;Sun Nov 17 22:31:26
199600]

Puzzling to me until I reasoned that since the firm was seemingly using a
direct link to Telemail in the US, the apparent 'time warp' had to be due
to the Dateline jump...(Since I haven't yet worked out how to "turn on"
full header descriptions in MS Internet Explorer 3.0 e-mail on my NT Server
4.0 plaything, I couldn't follow the message's perambulations toward my
local ISP.)

Meanwhile time travellers will no doubt latch on to the fact that this
service provider counts on being of service for a few hundred extra
centuries: Telemail for one won't suffer the 'millenium bug' come 2001, if
I interpret the date coding "199600" correctly...

> > And of course there are many deprived souls whose operating systems
don't
> > offer much in this line anyway.
> > 
> And of course broken operating systems, that implement it poorly...
> 

Not to mention those depraved (sic) souls like the net admin of
apnpc.com.au/ , who professed some slight astonishment when I accosted him
recently with the observation that all e-mails emanating from his domain
carried the GMT time offset (+0000), no doubt in deference to the Irish
publishers ultimate, if remote, control...

<snip>

Luis Huesch
Poet & Inventor

		--- 'Je faisc a toutes gens scavoir qu'encore est vive la souris!' ---
(F. Vill.)