In message <200702071214.04870@???>, Magnus Holmgren
<holmgren@???> writes
>The right way to add text to a signed and/or encrypted mail would, I believe,
>be by adding a new MIME part, just like Mailman does. The disclaimer won't be
>signed or encrypted, of course, but then again it doesn't really contain any
>information.
Not all signed/encrypted email is MIME (such as this email, at least
when it left here) !
So you need to understand more than one signing format to have a chance
of getting things correct
Also, as someone who regularly signs their email, I am very used to
people with less capable email clients (such as some of those made in
the Pacific Northwest of the USA) asking me why I keep sending extra
attachments with funny characters in... viz: you cannot assume that
every client will properly cope with multiple attachments in a good way
So the proper answer is that the text should be put there by the
originating email systems. If you want to second-guess the need for the
disclaimer (or company info -- which is only needed in the UK on
"business email"... and I really don't think this email is "business"
(though it's hardly "pleasure" either)) then by all means do a check for
it as the mail passes by... simple, elegant and avoids a lot of scope
for making emails unreadable at the far end :(
Nigel was asking about the legality of altering email. IANAL [though I
try to keep up to date on these things], but I strongly suspect that the
underlying issue that people are vaguely remembering is the ECommerce
Directive notion of "mere conduit".
ISPs that alter email passing through their systems lose this statutory
defence (although they could well still have many other defences against
liability). However, "mere conduit" would not be an issue for a
corporate email system -- and I cannot see that their liability for an
email changes one way or the other by an automated addition of text (or
mangling of headers or whatever).
- --
richard Richard Clayton
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin
