# Delayed Reaction E-mail.....or, is it?! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2000, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/delayed-reaction-e-mail-or-is-it/19973 "2000-05-19T15:13:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lucyfur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e36b37/32.png) [@lucyfur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucyfur)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/delayed-reaction-e-mail-or-is-it/19973/1 "2000-05-19T15:13:55Z")
Something strange here, and was hoping some techie’s could help. I received an e-mail through my hotmail that was sent approximately 30 days prior. Now, my suspicion is that the sender is playing a joke. I’d already received this particular e-mail from them last month. I tried to send an test e-mail to see if you can change the date/time stamp on your computer’s internal clock, and then sent an e-mail that way. Unfortunately, my e-mail runs through a server, and it takes the date/time of the server, and not the date/time of my hard-drive. If the person that sent the e-mail is NOT on a server, would he have the ability to fake the date that the e-mail was sent? I checked the full headers, and you can see that the e-mail was received from his ISP’s servers yesterday, NOT one month ago. Is this clear? Thanks in advance for your help. ---
**Author:** ![Nurlman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Nurlman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nurlman)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/delayed-reaction-e-mail-or-is-it/19973/2 "2000-05-19T15:42:25Z")
Depending on the mail program that is being used by the sender, a message can pick up a date at any one of several places. Most typically, it will bear the time on the clock of the creator’s computer, at least in the “date” line on the message. The headers will show the date and time on the clock on each intermediate server that it passed through along the way, so you should be able to look at the headers and see where the disconnect was (although some really broken mail servers don’t stamp the date). In all likelihood, your friend composed the message 30 days ago and probably parked it in a “drafts” folder. His e-mail program probably assinges a time for the message that the “compose” window was opened, so the message would bear a date of “April 18,” and he hit “send” on it a second time yesterday when he was cleaning out the “drafts” folder. It would be unusual indeed for his mail server to have sent it on but kept a copy to resend it to you now, although I suppose that it is technically possible that a bug exists. Post the full headers here and we’ll see what we can tell you about it. ---
**Author:** ![lucyfur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e36b37/32.png) [@lucyfur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucyfur)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/delayed-reaction-e-mail-or-is-it/19973/3 "2000-05-19T16:03:47Z")
Nurlman - I considered the “Drafts” scenario, however, I tested this option in several mail programs and it failed. I created a message and saved it in drafts one day, then sent it the next day. The date sent showed the last day, not the first day. This result was recreated with each different mail program. I deduced from that, the date drafted does not carry when actually sent. > [@](#): > > It would be unusual indeed for his mail server to have sent it on but kept a copy to resend it to you now, although I suppose that it is technically possible that a bug exists. I too thought that would be highly unlikely, hence my question today. The reason this is so important for me to figure, is I haven’t heard from this man in 19 days, and I’m going out of my mind without him in my email box. Here’s the headers (with all identifying marks changed). Hope this can tell someone what happened. I’m dying to know if he may have faked this in order to get me to respond. * * * From: XXX \<[XXXXX@home.com](mailto:XXXXX@home.com)\> To: XXXXX \<[XXXXXX@hotmail.com](mailto:XXXXXX@hotmail.com)\> Subject: Re: Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 09:37:44 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: from [XXXXX] by [hotmail.com](http://hotmail.com) (3.2) with ESMTP id MHotMailBAECEF350XXXXXXXXX; Thu May 18 01:05:09 2000 Received: from [home.com](http://home.com) ([XXXXXXXXX]) by [XXXXXXX.com](http://XXXXXXX.com) (InterMail XXXXXXXX) with ESMTP id \<[XXXXX.XXXXXX.com@home.com](mailto:XXXXX.XXXXXX.com@home.com)\> for \; Fri, 14 Apr 2000 08:36:06 -0700 From [XXXXXXXX@home.com](mailto:XXXXXXXX@home.com) Thu May 18 01:05:45 2000 Message-ID: \<[XXXXXXX@home.com](mailto:XXXXXXX@home.com)\> Organization: @Home Network X-Mailer: XXXXX[en]XXXXXX(Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en References: \<[XXXXXXXXX.xxxx@hotmail.com](mailto:XXXXXXXXX.xxxx@hotmail.com)\> * * * Thanks again!!! ---
**Author:** ![GaWd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f08c70/32.png) [@GaWd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaWd)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/delayed-reaction-e-mail-or-is-it/19973/4 "2000-05-19T16:13:19Z")
Lucyfur, The headers indicate that this was sent to you today, but sent to the SMTP server 34 days ago. This could be a bug, but I’d more than likely chalk it up to a server that crashed not too long after sending it to you originally. If the server crashed(we’re talking hardware crash, maybe a hard drive that needed to be recovered?) right after sending it, and didn’t confirm that it had sent it, and then was resurrected 34 days later by the staff @home…I guess is would be plausible. IMHO, that’s pretty elaborate, and not possible. Your man did NOT fake this, unless he’s an admin at the E-mail service. So, what we’re left with is a freak occurence. Just like the 40 Emails I received last week from somebody who was sending out “gift ideas for mom”(from a beer club of the month too, how mother’s day can you get?)…or last week when my E-mail server decided to spit out 15 copies of a test message while the network was in a state of shock. Let’s just call it an act of GaWd 😃 -Sam ---
**Author:** ![lucyfur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e36b37/32.png) [@lucyfur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucyfur)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/delayed-reaction-e-mail-or-is-it/19973/5 "2000-05-19T16:39:38Z")
OK, Gawd 😃 Thanks for taking a look at it.