There is some dispute over the validity of an email based solely on the
reported dates and times.

The question has been raised as the reply has a date/time stamp EARLIER
than the quoted date/time stamp of the original message being replied
to.

After investigation it appears the situation is as follows, I am
looking for confirmation that my understanding is correct and the below
is logical and plausible.

Main source of problem stems from the sender having the wrong time zone
selected. Flow of events as follows:

- Sender (Person A) actually located at GMT +11
- Person A's PC Date and Time are correctly set to local date and time
however time zone is the default US installation of GMT -8
- Person A sends an email on March 15 at 4:21PM.
- Message goes off with Outlook's standard timestamp quoting 4:21pm GMT
-8 due to local settings.
- Recipient (Person B) receives message, however time zone is set
correctly to GMT +11
- Outlook believes message to have been sent from someone located at
GMT -8 and therefore adds 19 hours total to convert relative to
perceived local time and timestamps the message as being received at
11:21am March 16th in outlook for Person B.
- Person B replys to email, quoting original message in-line, the local
timestamp is therefore embedded as text in the message body stating
11:21am March 16th as follows:

RESPONSE WRITTEN HERE

----- Original Message -----
From: Person A
To: Person B
Cc: Person C
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 11:21 AM
Subject: XXXXX

ORIGINAL MESSAGE HERE

- Reply message time-stamped with 5:54pm GMT+11
- When the reply hits the inbox for Person A again outlook converts the
date/time to what it perceives to be local time, i.e. subtracts 19
hours and displays the sent date/time as Sunday, March 14, 2004 10:54
PM
- Person A then forwards message in-line to Person C, forwarded message
looks as follows:

-----Original Message-----
From: Person B
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 10:54 PM
To: Person A
Subject: XXXXX

RESPONSE WRITTEN HERE
etc.

- Since then Person A has updated their timezone to GMT +11 correctly,
so the first message shows as being sent Tuesday, March 16, 2004 11:21
AM as it was originally timestamped as being GMT -8, the response shows
correctly as Monday, March 15, 2004 5:54 PM as it was correctly
time-stamped as GMT +11, and the forwarded reply to Person C shows as
Tuesday, 16 March 2004 11:52 AM in the users inbox.
- Headers on the reply show:
Received: from unknown (HELO personBcomputername) (personBipaddress) by
personBmailserver with SMTP; 15 Mar 2004 06:54:13 -0000
which matches the reply being sent at 5:54 PM GMT+11

Is anyone able to confirm that my logic above is sound and a reasonable
explanation as to how this perceived time difference would occur? I
believe the people are incorrectly using the computer dispayed
timestamps as being official rather than correctly using the header
information.

very sleepy wrote:

Is anyone able to confirm that my logic above is sound and a
reasonable explanation as to how this perceived time difference would
occur? I believe the people are incorrectly using the computer
dispayed timestamps as being official rather than correctly using the
header information.

Sounds reasonable to me, but even the headers are suspect, since routers
along the way can add their own and there's no guarantee those time stamps
are correct either.
--
Brian Tillman