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Given that one can upload emails to gmail via IMAP, via methods such as:
http://email.about.com/od/gmailtips/qt/How_to_Import_Mail_from_Mozilla_Thunderbird_in_Gmail.htm
Is there a method to prove that emails in gmail are legitimate? If one took an email to court, and the other party claimed the email was manipulated via IMAP, how would one marshal a defence?
Obviously in cases where federal agents freeze gmail accounts, the data in it holds value should one not have expected a super-user to be aware of a coming freeze before hand... but that's not what I'm interested in.
I'm interested in means of PROVING that emails are original and legitimate against claims of IMAP upload manipulation.
Thanx.
Open the mail headers? – Rob – 2013-09-27T11:47:14.893
Why would the mail headers be any different? They should simply contain all the header information submitted to gmail via the manipulated IMAP calls. – Daniel – 2013-09-27T11:50:18.653
@Ramhound, I acknowledge that this problem exists when running one's own servers... but gmail is ubiquitous, and the assumption is because it is managed by a 3rd party, it is certified by a 3rd party. There is also secret-sauce in gmail storage (labels) that aren't in the email standard. So either there IS a way of validating that gmail provides or there isn't. The question is well defined. If you're still unhappy, please explain why. – Daniel – 2013-09-27T11:53:50.407
@Ramhound, the email standard doesn't provide means of validating the source of an email per se, only capturing various processing sources in the header. My citation about labels demonstrates that I'm interested in what features GMAIL specifically provides, and this is an example of how they have broken with standards (implemented additional features) in the past. It turns out that the answer I'm looking for might lie in the processing of the DKIM header tag PROVIDED that this is/isn't altered on imap upload. You seem to be interested in a different question. – Daniel – 2013-09-27T12:10:31.730
@Ramhound Again! That isn't what I was asking. DKIM can be used to verify the sender, but in many cases where DKIM isn't set... there seems to be NO mechanism. So the answer is NO there doesn't appear to be a public mechanism for gmail specifically, but they may keep logs internally, but there is no data to back this up. – Daniel – 2013-09-27T12:23:52.823