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Re: About date spoofing

From: Don Piven (postfixpiven.net)
Date: Fri Mar 14 2008 - 06:58:25 CDT


AlxFrag wrote:
> Hi,
> i'd like to ask if it is possible to avoid date spoofing in emails.
> Supposing there is a deadline for paper submission through emails, one
> can change the date and time on his mail client and put it in the past.
> The person who receives his email could simply check the mail headers
> and see the true date. An average user might not think to do that.
>
> Is it possible for postfix to write the correct date on the incoming
> emails?

RFC2822 says that the origination date (the "Date:" header) is when the
message enters the sender's mail distribution system. Quoting the RFC,
the origination date header "is specifically not intended to convey the
    time that the message is actually transported, but rather the time
at which the human or other creator of the message has put the
message into its final form, ready for transport."

So, Postfix certainly could rewrite Date: headers to reflect time of
receipt, but that would not be standards-compliant.

Some mail clients (such as Mozilla Thunderbird) distinguish between
message origination date and message receipt date, so that could be used
  to check actual time of receipt if you don't want to go look at the
raw headers.

Don Piven