[Tfug] Slightly OT: Got a weird one regarding EMail logs and ISPs.

[Brian Murphy]

Your friend's legal team should be in contact with MSN and Cox ASAP so
that they preserve the mail logs from that day.

I don't know the records retention policy of either but I would assume
it's not forever.

I concur that obtaining the email headers is key (for the Received
lines) and your friend's lawyer should fight to have the questionable
email thrown out of evidence without this info.  Act quick in case if
MSN/Cox have 6 month retentions.

ISPs get subpoenas all the time so their legal departments will have
procedures to get the records if they have them.

Brian

Quoting Jim March <1.jim.march at gmail.com>:
> Not exactly Linux but then not exactly "not" either.
>
> Got a friend who got involved in a business deal that went south, now
> he's suing.  The guy he's suing sounds like a real winner and is
> claiming there's a couple grand worth of expenses my friend never
> agreed to.  Except the guy we'll call "the bad guy" for now has what
> he claims is an EMail in which my friend authorized the expenses in
> question.
>
> The bad guy has produced this EMail for a court.  It doesn't include
> header data - just the timestamp received at COX (late Jan. 2009),
> to/from info (allegedly from my friend's MSN.COM account to their
> COX.NET account), subject line and text.
>
> He says the EMail in question is fake, he never sent it.
>
> They could have easily faked it any number of ways, but the header
> data would of course be much harder to fake, and these guys ain't all
> that smart.  Right now he's telling the court it's a fake EMail (under
> oath on his part, sworn declaration) and he's doing a request for
> document production for the header data.
>
> Now assuming he's telling me the truth and he never sent that, I would
> assume the other side will claim they purged their electronic copy so
> they have no header data, if they're at all smart.
>
> Can he ask his paid ISP (msn bleah on a dial-up account paid to them
> gag) to show that they have no log for his outgoing mail of that
> subject line at that time, and that there would be one if the message
> is fake?  I would guess that as an MSN customer he doesn't need a
> court order to track data he allegedly sent?  OR if MSN doesn't keep
> such logs, is it possible COX does and he gets a court order for their
> logs, would COX keep that kind of thing?
>
> Any other thoughts on cracking this?
>
> I'm BCCing the friend...
>
> Jim
>
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The opinions or statements expressed herein are my own and should not be
taken as a position, opinion, or endorsement of the University of
Arizona.