"Incorrect" auto-complete in TB
I just managed to send some confidential docs intended for someone at one customer to someone with the same name at another customer... Completely my fault, it's been a long day. Does anyone have any clever solutions for this kind of thing? I can't think of one myself. (Maybe its a shame I don't have a disclaimer telling the recipient its all their fault not mine?) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 7:38 PM, Mark Rogers <mark@quarella.co.uk> wrote:
I just managed to send some confidential docs intended for someone at one customer to someone with the same name at another customer...
Completely my fault, it's been a long day.
Does anyone have any clever solutions for this kind of thing? I can't think of one myself.
Would that be the same clever solution if you had stuffed the wrong envelope with the confidential documents and posted it? You're going to have to ask them nicely to destroy it without reading or copying it. Good luck, Tim.
Tim Green wrote:
Would that be the same clever solution if you had stuffed the wrong envelope with the confidential documents and posted it?
That's harder to do!
You're going to have to ask them nicely to destroy it without reading or copying it.
I've done that, and its not a major problem, I'm just left looking like a [insert word here]. mbm wrote:
No, but you could try switching to a mail client which does not auto-complete (or just turn off auto-completion in Tbird).
But I want to have my cake and eat it too!!! I was thinking about this last night. If auto-complete gave me a drop-down to select from (as at present), but did not actually fill in the address unless I selected one, that would be a helpful compromise. Ted Harding wrote:
For email addresses I use an alias system of terse abbreviations which I type in. So I type in "alug" and it fills in the full address.
This is a good idea. I did last night create a group of addresses for the intended recipients of the email I mis-sent (as its several people who often get CC'd together) so the chances of getting this particular set wrong again are reduced. And, of-course, I've naturally become paranoid and now triple check everything (I was already double-checking, that wasn't enough!) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
On 27/03/2008, Mark Rogers <mark@quarella.co.uk> wrote:
Tim Green wrote:
Would that be the same clever solution if you had stuffed the wrong envelope with the confidential documents and posted it?
That's harder to do!
You're going to have to ask them nicely to destroy it without reading or copying it.
I've done that, and its not a major problem, I'm just left looking like a [insert word here].
mbm wrote:
No, but you could try switching to a mail client which does not auto-complete (or just turn off auto-completion in Tbird).
But I want to have my cake and eat it too!!!
I was thinking about this last night. If auto-complete gave me a drop-down to select from (as at present), but did not actually fill in the address unless I selected one, that would be a helpful compromise.
Ted Harding wrote:
For email addresses I use an alias system of terse abbreviations which I type in. So I type in "alug" and it fills in the full address.
This is a good idea. I did last night create a group of addresses for the intended recipients of the email I mis-sent (as its several people who often get CC'd together) so the chances of getting this particular set wrong again are reduced. And, of-course, I've naturally become paranoid and now triple check everything (I was already double-checking, that wasn't enough!)
-- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
I haven't used it but what about encryption - in TB you've got GPG and enigmail. I think it is the only email client offering this! Worth using if you need to send important documents - but then again email isn't secure they tell us. If i'm going to buy something and need to send a credit card number i use a fax as it is secure [unless you dial the wrong number which is a bit harder to do than email auto-complete]. Got an email somewhere about a bloke who was paranoid that all emails are used for research purposes by the likes of yahoo etc. Bit OTT but one can chuckle! Big brother is watching you! james
On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:24:51 +0000 "member jessejazza" <jessejazza@opensuse.us> allegedly wrote:
I haven't used it but what about encryption - in TB you've got GPG and enigmail. I think it is the only email client offering this! Worth using if you need to send important documents - but then again email isn't secure they tell us. If i'm going to buy something and need to send a credit card number i use a fax as it is secure [unless you dial the wrong number which is a bit harder to do than email auto-complete].
James No public key encryption system (such as (G)PGP) will help here unless you have the recipient's public key. And public key crypto is not widely used in email. I routinely sign my emails and will happily accept encrypted email from anyone who cares to send it to me. But I canmnot send you any such email unless you give me your key. Mick (And TBird is not the only email client offering GPG integration. I use clawsmail.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------
mbm wrote:
No public key encryption system (such as (G)PGP) will help here unless you have the recipient's public key. And public key crypto is not widely used in email.
.. and especially not in Windows houses! In any case, if my email client were clever enough to pick the recipient based only on a couple of typed characters, I'm sure it could have picked that recipients key to encrypt with, even if it were still the wrong recipient. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
On 27/03/2008, mbm <mbm@rlogin.net> wrote:
On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:24:51 +0000 "member jessejazza" <jessejazza@opensuse.us> allegedly wrote:
I haven't used it but what about encryption - in TB you've got GPG and enigmail. I think it is the only email client offering this! Worth using if you need to send important documents - but then again email isn't secure they tell us. If i'm going to buy something and need to send a credit card number i use a fax as it is secure [unless you dial the wrong number which is a bit harder to do than email auto-complete].
James
No public key encryption system (such as (G)PGP) will help here unless you have the recipient's public key. And public key crypto is not widely used in email. I routinely sign my emails and will happily accept encrypted email from anyone who cares to send it to me. But I canmnot send you any such email unless you give me your key.
Mick
(And TBird is not the only email client offering GPG integration. I use clawsmail.)
Well ok... thanks for the correction. Too much messing about when one can send a fax i reckon... and be sure it gets there. Talking of which i've just been in touch with the PM. It is fine having a fancy party but everyone seems to have forgotten who sold Exocet missiles to the Argentinians during the Falklands War. I asked him to explain how the French are our allies - we of course put France on the right track after WW2 but what have they ever done for us! Invented lots of EU rules... but never follow them! james
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 05:23:21PM +0000, member jessejazza wrote:
Talking of which i've just been in touch with the PM. It is fine having a fancy party but everyone seems to have forgotten who sold Exocet missiles to the Argentinians during the Falklands War. I asked him to explain how the French are our allies - we of course put France on the right track after WW2 but what have they ever done for us! Invented lots of EU rules... but never follow them!
Erm, I'm sure if you could stop being xenophobic and did some research you will see that the French gave us lots of information and assistance during the Falklands war to help the British task force to defend themselves against Exocet. They obviously couldn't do it publically because it would hurt their arms sales around the world but they did do it. Also, the missiles used in the conflict were not sold *during* the war, they were supplied beforehand and the French didn't sell any missiles to them during hostilities and helped stop further missiles being supplied to them from the global arms market. If you look at is further the British had also sold the Argentinians arms in the past including English Electric Canberras and they had surface to air missiles that were British in design so quite how come the French were the bad guys in this I don't know. Also, to top that all off the Argentinians also had plenty of American sourced weapons too. That isn't the only thing that the French have done for us in Great Britain but if you don't want to believe that then fine, but please keep your xenophobia off this list which is about Linux please. Adam -- jabberid = quinophex@jabber.earth.li
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 05:23:21PM +0000, member jessejazza wrote:
On 27/03/2008, mbm <mbm@rlogin.net> wrote:
(And TBird is not the only email client offering GPG integration. I use clawsmail.) Well ok... thanks for the correction. Too much messing about when one can send a fax i reckon... and be sure it gets there.
Fax, easy? Eh? Too much faff. While I accept that GPG might be beyond many recipients, it's certainly a lot easier for me than a fax. And there's no guarantee a fax gets read (or acted on) either IME. (Also in the case of places insisting on signed documents via fax I have on more than one occasion found it easier to take their PDF and cut and paste a signature than actually print out and sign something, which anyone could have done, whereas a digital signature would be much more secure.) J. -- 101 things you can't have too | .''`. Debian GNU/Linux Developer much of : 39 - silver bullets. | : :' : Happy to accept PGP signed | `. `' or encrypted mail - RSA + | `- DSA keys on the keyservers.
On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, member jessejazza wrote:
If i'm going to buy something and need to send a credit card number i use a fax as it is secure [unless you dial the wrong number which is a bit harder to do than email auto-complete].
Ahh, a false sense of security! :] What if I was to swing by the office of the company you are buying goods from and I just happen to pick up the fax when no one was looking [or they were temporarily distracted]? Ok, so it's a very unlikely scenario, but just because you sent the fax somewhere does not mean the intended recipient will be the only one to see it. And this is also even true of email or normal land post. Nothing is secure. Don't make that mistake again. (All systems, technological or otherwise, have weaknesses available for exploitation.) - Srdj
On 27/03/2008, Srdjan Todorovic <todorovic.s@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, member jessejazza wrote:
If i'm going to buy something and need to send a credit card number i use a fax as it is secure [unless you dial the wrong number which is a bit harder to do than email auto-complete].
Ahh, a false sense of security! :] What if I was to swing by the office of the company you are buying goods from and I just happen to pick up the fax when no one was looking [or they were temporarily distracted]?
Ok, so it's a very unlikely scenario, but just because you sent the fax somewhere does not mean the intended recipient will be the only one to see it. And this is also even true of email or normal land post.
Nothing is secure. Don't make that mistake again. (All systems, technological or otherwise, have weaknesses available for exploitation.)
- Srdj
All i meant by security; is that umpteen emails get lost somehow each day. Sending a fax one can be sure that it has reached its destination and can only be read by someone there. With email or post it can be intercepted! Since a fax makes a noise when it arrives it is more likely to be read than a letter or email IMO. For example, for my classic car parts i use fax listing the items and card number at the bottom. As i know these folk the important part of the security is that it isn't intercepted on route. Anytime i can use a fax i do to save on postage... like sorting out a council tax error - i know that fax will get straight to the intended department. james
On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 20:59 +0000, member jessejazza wrote:
All i meant by security; is that umpteen emails get lost somehow each day. Sending a fax one can be sure that it has reached its destination
Can you though ? Many companies now use a computer as a fax gateway at least for inbound if not outbound as well, most of these actually turn your fax into an email. Even if they are using a regular fax machine, any model made in the last 15 years will probably store the received document in memory if it can't print it (i.e. out of paper) to the sender this will be reported as received but if the machine is for example power cycled before it is able to print then your fax will be lost. Compare this to a fair percentage of mail systems that will send an NDR if the message cannot be routed to it's intended recipient.
and can only be read by someone there.
Actually not true..fax encoding is highly tolerant of line noise, low speed and the format is well understood...a line tap anywhere in circuit would yield the contents of the transmission, hell I have the equipment to do this in a non invasive (inductive) manner in a drawer not 10 feet away from me. That puts it to my mind about equal to email.
With email or post it can be intercepted! Since a fax makes a noise when it arrives it is more likely to be read than a letter or email IMO.
Only if you are sitting next to it and aren't doing something that prevented you from hearing the noise. I would say that people that are ignoring emails and postal mail are just as likely if not more likely to ignore faxes.
For example, for my classic car parts i use fax listing the items and card number at the bottom. As i know these folk the important part of the security is that it isn't intercepted on route. Anytime i can use a fax i do to save on postage... like sorting out a council tax error - i know that fax will get straight to the intended department.
So what happens to the bit of paper with your card number on ?...how can you be sure that it is disposed of in a responsible manner once the transaction is complete. How can you be sure it doesn't end up in a wastepaper bin intact..or ends up in a file so that an office temp in 2 years time can skim it ? You are right about email (in it's default configuration) being an insecure transport..but to consider faxes any better is probably miss-guided. As to people noticing faxes over emails I think you are half right...As a company we did try invoicing by emailing pdf's for a while to save postage costs, we found an approximate 30% increase in the need to chase for payment even though in most cases we were able to verify the email had made it to the intended recipient. We returned to postal invoices. Fax I suspect would have yielded approximately the same results as email because most of our clients have fax to email gateways (we should know, we installed them!) Those that don't have a single machine somewhere quite likely to be nowhere near the intended recipient. So then you are reliant on someone picking it up and giving it to accounts...IMO that would be less reliable than emailing a known address for the company accountant.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Only if you are sitting next to it and aren't doing something that prevented you from hearing the noise. I would say that people that are ignoring emails and postal mail are just as likely if not more likely to ignore faxes.
I think the extent to which people ignore any medium en-masse depends on (a) signal:noise ratio, and (b) their desired to read that "signal". If someone gets loads of faxes and loads of email, but the faxes are all (or almost all) orders, and the email mostly junk, they'll pay a lot more attention to the faxes. (If they're mostly invoices, I have a suspicion that a lot might go missing!) I'd say about 80% of the faxes we get are junk, so we don't all rush to deal with faxes. (We also use fax->email, but its based on WinFax and my Linux desktop can't open the attachments except by using the WinFax viewer under Wine, and that doesn't work very well.) The major problem with email is of-course signal:noise ratio. I find it staggering that there isn't a better solution than the current implementation.
So what happens to the bit of paper with your card number on ?
Remember those old card swipe machines which used carbon paper? Huge volumes of the carbon paper ended up in rubbish sacks, un-shredded, giving easy access to all card details and signatures. New technology, new problems, but we're fools if we think it used to be much better. Incidentally, the thrust of this conversation seems to be whether email or fax is better for sending credit card details - I most certainly would not use either! I'm happy with secure web sites from companies I have already decided to trust for other reasons, which is naive because a lot of the details will doubtless still get printed and not destroyed at the other end (is it still naive if I know it is naive?). But in any transaction there is an issue of trust - I could hand them cash in person only to get home and discover that the product doesn't work. At least with credit cards there's a reasonable chance that the credit card company will have to suffer the loss rather than me. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:38:53 +0000 Mark Rogers <mark@quarella.co.uk> allegedly wrote:
I just managed to send some confidential docs intended for someone at one customer to someone with the same name at another customer...
Completely my fault, it's been a long day.
Does anyone have any clever solutions for this kind of thing? I can't think of one myself.
Mark No, but you could try switching to a mail client which does not auto-complete (or just turn off auto-completion in Tbird). Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 26-Mar-08 20:38:25, mbm wrote:
On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:38:53 +0000 Mark Rogers <mark@quarella.co.uk> allegedly wrote:
I just managed to send some confidential docs intended for someone at one customer to someone with the same name at another customer...
Completely my fault, it's been a long day.
Does anyone have any clever solutions for this kind of thing? I can't think of one myself.
Mark
No, but you could try switching to a mail client which does not auto-complete (or just turn off auto-completion in Tbird).
Mick
I hope Mark Rogers manages to recover gracefully from his unfortunate slip! I have to commend MBM's suggestion of turning off auto-completion. I could never live with auto-completion/spell/grammar -- I've seen far too many painful things happen! For email addresses I use an alias system of terse abbreviations which I type in. So I type in "alug" and it fills in the full address. It doesn't "auto-complete" because there's no other entry in the aliases database which is identified as "alug". Mind you, I don't use Thunderbird, so can't comment on setting up such a system of aliases in TB. The Cambridge Evening News has an "auto-date" tic in whatever software they use to write up their articles, which inserts the relevant date immediately after "today" or "yesterday" or "Thursday" (e.g. "Thursday (20th March)", assuming last Thursday), etc. Their most triumphant gem that I've seen yet is from last December: http://tinyurl.com/37cxwv (The country's roads have been given "star ratings" for safety (1-4, with fractions ... ). The A14 gets 2.79 stars.) Quote from the above article: Dr Steve Lawson, technical director of EuroRAP, the organisation which worked out the star system, said two-star roads like the A14 were "dysfunctional" and "were not built to cope with today (Wednesday, 05 December)'s traffic". Ah well, perhaps it was better the next day! Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 26-Mar-08 Time: 21:10:54 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
participants (9)
-
Adam Bower -
Jonathan McDowell -
Mark Rogers -
mbm -
member jessejazza -
Srdjan Todorovic -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood