A Letter in response to "Daemon Seed" -- Wired

Resurrected an old letter of mine that was published in Wired. Here it is:

I was surprised that David Bennahum did not discuss how easy it is to tamper
with email. On many computer systems, it's possible to change the body, date,
and header details of a filed message such that no one will detect these
alterations. A case in point: What assurance do we have that the colorful email
evidence in the Microsoft case has not been altered?

---

My Letter
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/rants.html
Issue 7.08 | August 1999

Title: Daemon Seedlings

Article Commented on
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.05/email.html
Daemon Seed
Issue 7.05 | May 1999
Old email never dies.
By David S. Bennahum
It's almost impossible to hide your email from John Jessen. To him, the word
delete is an invitation. Jessen can restore email from magnetic tapes that have
been overwritten several times, resuscitating information off "deleted" files.
He can read email and documents from obsolete computer systems. Jessen can
capture phantoms; he understands the foibles of wordprocessing programs that
leave undo lists and backups of old edits in hidden parts of files and disks....

ooo[clip]ooo

ooo[computers]ooo

ooo[L2E]ooo