Ability to change RTF e-mails after receipt

[Bill Curran]

We just noticed today that with Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003, any e-mails
that are received in RTF format can be modified and saved by the receiver.
Plain text and HTML emails cannot be modified. I googled and searched and
found noone else alarmed by this, and it really scares me that people who
have been scared away from HTML emails because they are
blocked/trapped/filtered everywhere have all switched to RTF (because they
gotta have pretty email) and they don't know that without IRM (Information
Rights Management) , these emails can be freely modified by the recipients
and its very difficult to tell that an email has been modified.

Am I missing something obvious here?

Bill Curran
National Steel Car
IT

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

What you may be missing is that all messages can be modified. With plain text and HTML messages, it just takes an extra step to put them into edit mode.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54

 

[Martin Gerhold]

We just noticed today that with Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003, any e-mails
that are received in RTF format can be modified and saved by the receiver.
Plain text and HTML emails cannot be modified. I googled and searched and
found noone else alarmed by this, and it really scares me that people who
have been scared away from HTML emails because they are
blocked/trapped/filtered everywhere have all switched to RTF (because they
gotta have pretty email) and they don't know that without IRM (Information
Rights Management) , these emails can be freely modified by the recipients
and its very difficult to tell that an email has been modified.

Am I missing something obvious here?

Bill Curran
National Steel Car
IT

I think you'll find its worse than that: all emails (in Outlook) can be edited
(AFAIK), its just that by default, RTF ones open in 'edit' mode, whilst HTML and
plain text don't. With one of the latter open for reading, select 'Edit>Edit
Message'. This has its advantages (easy stripping of attachments, for example),
but it has always made me wonder about situations when email texts are held up
as proof of what was sent (and sometimes in legal cases). It may be there are
secure copies held behind the scenes at work, but as an ordinary office user, i
wouldn't know. There are certainly no such copies of my home email (or if there
are, I wonder who's holding them!).

Martin

 

[Bill Curran]

I think you'll find its worse than that: all emails (in Outlook) can
be edited (AFAIK), its just that by default, RTF ones open in 'edit'
mode, whilst HTML and plain text don't. With one of the latter open
for reading, select 'Edit>Edit Message'. This has its advantages
(easy stripping of attachments, for example), but it has always made
me wonder about situations when email texts are held up as proof of
what was sent (and sometimes in legal cases). It may be there are
secure copies held behind the scenes at work, but as an ordinary
office user, i wouldn't know. There are certainly no such copies of
my home email (or if there are, I wonder who's holding them!).

Martin

Ouch. Just saw the edit option. There is a reg hack to hold the original
source for "new" messages that can be seen from the "view-options-
internet headers"- it will obviously require more storage - but can at
least be used to validate the original text of the message.

Thanks for your help.

Bill Curran

 

[Brian Tillman]

We just noticed today that with Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003, any
e-mails that are received in RTF format can be modified and saved by
the receiver. Plain text and HTML emails cannot be modified.

Yes they can. CLick Edit>Edit Message and you can change any type of
message.

I googled and searched and found noone else alarmed by this,

Why should they? Once the bits reach my computer, they're my bits. I can
do what I wish with them.

and it
really scares me that people who have been scared away from HTML
emails because they are blocked/trapped/filtered everywhere have all
switched to RTF (because they gotta have pretty email) and they don't
know that without IRM (Information Rights Management) , these emails
can be freely modified by the recipients and its very difficult to
tell that an email has been modified.

No where has it ever been claimed that email was secure or that tracability
was guaranteed. In fact, all claims have been to the contrary. Digital
signatures, at least, guarantee the sender is who he claims to be.