> >> That header is supposed to be attached by the originating MUA,
> >> and I don't *think* transit MTAs are permitted to rewrite it...
>
> Problem is, that when MUA or first MTA has a incorrect date
> set, the email comes like last in inbox... have seen emails
> set with 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Or, even worse, it has a date
> that is like, several months off, so you have to SEARCH your
> inbox after that unread email that was popped into the middle.
This is a common problem with a lot of eMail clients, and spammers
even sometimes use this to sneak their messages into inboxes in more
subtle ways. It's certainly can be a frustrating problem, especially
when a sender has the incorrect date set on their computer.
I'm still using Pegasus Mail (on Linux under WINE) which shows the
newly received messages first (until I reload the folder). It's a
nice feature, but I know that most eMail clients don't do this (and
I'm not suggesting you change eMail software).
Does your eMail software provide an option to sort by the most
recent "Received:" header?
In Mozilla Thunderbird, "View menu -> Sort by -> Received" will sort
messages either by the "Received:" header or by the date and time you
received the message -- either way, this resolves the problem if
you're using Thunderbird. (I don't know whether other eMail software
like Evolution, SnappyMail, MS-OutLook, etc., have this capability.)
> Thus to avoid that irritating problem, both for my users, and
> for myself, I just set the Date: header to the server
> time, correcting any incorrect dates.
One of these two options may work better for you:
1. Reject, with a 5yz status during the SMTP session, messages
that
contain an invalid "Date:" header, and configure an additional
invalidity criteria to include: dates that are older than 1 week;
and dates that are more than 2 days in the future.
2. Rename the existing "Date:" header to "X-Original-Date:"
before
adding your own "Date:" header.
I recommend option 1 over option 2, but if this isn't possible with
your mail server (I'd be happy to write a script to detect this if
anyone needs this functionality during BEFOREQUEUE processing), then
option 2 will at least preserve the contents of the original "Date:"
header (which helps to mitigate problems, like those that I'm
describing hereunder...).
(I strongly discourage the modification of headers provided by the
sender -- it's always better to add custom headers instead.)
> Whats so wrong with it.
Two words: Court evidence
If the eMails in your possession are to be used in a future court
case, you put yourself at risk for evidence tampering, which could
result in all your evidence being excluded from the case, or you
could be charged with an offence that results in fines or even
incarceration, depending on laws, what opposing counsel demands, the
Judge's discretion, jurisdiction requirements, etc.
Additionally, there are other problems, such as a sender describing
something they sent to you based on their message's date and time,
and you not being able to find it (at least not immediately) because
your date and time is different -- sometimes eMail can be queued on
the client-side where the "Date:" header was already created, or it's
delayed in one or more mail server queues for any number of reasons
(e.g., prolonged network outages, awaiting manual inspection by
overburdened staff, etc.), which is tracked by "Received:" headers.
--
Postmaster - postmas...@inter-corporate.com
Randolf Richardson, CNA - rand...@inter-corporate.com
Inter-Corporate Computer & Network Services, Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
https://www.inter-corporate.com/
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