Wildcard: email ?

[Wildcard]

During a recent conversation with a friend shortly after the election, he told me of an email he'd received from a friend of his. What was a bit odd, was that there was some type of caveat either attached to, or prior to his opening his friend's email, that stated "someone is trying to send you and email with adult content". He went on to say that the email was pretty "routine", with the exception that his friend dropped the f-word somewhere in the text, which is the only thing he can figure that generated the message. Both have Yahoo accounts.

Would this also happen with Hotmail, Hushmail, AOL, etc?

I thought it was a filter thing, but couldn't be sure or explain why. I didn't think it was any big deal, but was wondering how this happened. Do Yahoo and others check email content for "bad words", then generate such a caveat to the receiver? I've never received such a caveat, but can recall a time or two when a friend may have used such language. Is this a big deal, or no big deal? I would think between two grown men in their 50s, that whatever they choose to write about it pretty much their business.

Additionally, we got into "where do emails go". I told him that I thought that even though you delete an email and empty the trash, that somewhere, somehow that email still exists. Can anyone elaborate on this and just how long do deleted emails float around?

Thanks,
Wildcard

[Parker]

> During a recent conversation with a friend
> shortly after the election, he told me of an
> email he'd received from a friend of his.
> What was a bit odd, was that there was some
> type of caveat either attached to, or prior
> to his opening his friend's email, that
> stated "someone is trying to send you
> and email with adult content". He went
> on to say that the email was pretty
> "routine", with the exception that
> his friend dropped the f-word somewhere in
> the text, which is the only thing he can
> figure that generated the message. Both have
> Yahoo accounts.

> Would this also happen with Hotmail,
> Hushmail, AOL, etc?

> I thought it was a filter thing, but
> couldn't be sure or explain why. I didn't
> think it was any big deal, but was wondering
> how this happened. Do Yahoo and others check
> email content for "bad words",
> then generate such a caveat to the receiver?

Not by default. However, nearly all e-mail services have filtering capability, and it would not be difficult to configure such a filter.

In addition, there are "parental control" type programs available that do this sort of filtering.

It seems a bit odd that your friend would have such a filter or program installed and not be aware of it.

Another possibility (and a likely one, now that I think of it), is that his computer is infected with spyware/adware. Some of these give you a warning of some sort about "adult content has been detected." If you bite and click on the link, it will try to sell you software for removing it.

> I've never received such a caveat, but can
> recall a time or two when a friend may have
> used such language. Is this a big deal, or
> no big deal? I would think between two grown
> men in their 50s, that whatever they choose
> to write about it pretty much their
> business.

Google recently got themselves into a bit of controversy with their new G-mail service. All e-mail is scanned for certain keywords that determine what sort of ads you see on the G-mail pages. They are emphatic that no human actually reads the mail and that your privacy is secure.

> Additionally, we got into "where do
> emails go". I told him that I thought
> that even though you delete an email and
> empty the trash, that somewhere, somehow
> that email still exists. Can anyone
> elaborate on this and just how long do
> deleted emails float around?

First, it is important to realize that there are two main types of e-mail, web-based and POP3-based. Yahoo and Hotmail are examples of web-based e-mail. The e-mail address or addresses provided by your ISP that you access with Outlook Express or other e-mail clients is probably POP3.

AOL has their own format. Since I have never used AOL, I know nothing about it.

With web-based e-mail, your messages are stored on the provider's server. With POP3 e-mail, you download the messages and they are stored on your own hard drive.

When any file of any type is deleted, all that actually happens is that the header is removed - the data itself remains. The header is sort of like a road sign pointing to the data. Once it is removed, then that part of the drive may be used to store other data. Until that part of the drive is actually overwritten with new data, the deleted file may be recovered by using software designed for that purpose.

This is true regardless of whether the deleted file is on a server (web-based e-mail) or on your own hard drive (POP3 e-mail).

In addition, all responsible servers run backups, and you should be backing up your hard drive. Obviously, deleting a file does not remove the backup copy until the backup is updated.