If You Can Read This, You're Breaking The Law!
from the your-mail-is-not-your-own dept
I get lots of (legitimate) email, intended for other people, sent to my email address. I guess it's easy to screw up your own address and wind up at mine -- or mine is just a popular one to use as a fake, when people don't want to supply their real one. Just today, I received an email from Remax, Northern Illinois, thanking me for registering on their site (and conveniently providing me with the password "I" used to sign up), which I didn't, an order confirmation for tickets to see Blue Man Group at the Pioneer Center (in Reno), which I did not purchase, and an "Acknowledgment Letter" from an attorney (maybe) with attachments and no message body aside from the following:NOTE: This e-mail message (including attachments) is subject to attorney-client privilege and contains confidential information intended only for the person(s) to whom this email message is addressed. This e-mail may be covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521, which provides criminal penalties for your use of this email without permission. This message may contain Protected Health Information covered under HIPAA Rules and HITECH Standards including, but not limited to, all applicable requirements of the HIPAA Security rule in 45 C.F.R. §§ 164.308, 164.310,164.312 and 164.316, including any amendments thereto. If you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone or e-mail and destroy the original message without making a copy.Now, although I have to admit that I was initially impressed by all those fancy numbers and § symbols, a few things struck me as odd. First of all, if the information is "intended only for the person(s) to whom this email message is addressed," and it was addressed to me, wouldn't that mean it's intended for me? Second, with absolutely no information in the body of the email, other than this warning, how am I supposed to know for sure that it was not intended for me? And, finally, if you mistakenly send someone else's confidential information directly to me (not because of an email server routing error), how is it that I am the one in danger of "criminal penalties" for opening my own mail?
As I have no interest in reading this person's confidential information, I have not opened the attachments and have no plans to do so. And although I'm not even certain a threat like this is enforceable, I will be canceling my email account, destroying my hard drive, and leaving the country for a while. Wish me luck.
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Filed Under: boilerplate, email, legalese, signatures
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Wouldn't want to get into trouble.
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Re:
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EULA ALL THE THINGS!
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Re: EULA ALL THE THINGS!
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Re: Re: EULA ALL THE THINGS!
Perhaps "By depositing or cashing this check you agree to waive and/or render void any End User License Agreement or standard contract you normally apply to your customers, for any services or products this check is used to pay for."
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Re: Re: EULA ALL THE THINGS!
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Re: EULA ALL THE THINGS!
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Response to: PlagueSD on Aug 11th, 2011 @ 3:45pm
I have seen similar emails but instead of Blue Man Group it was talking about money from a settlement.
Maybe the spammers are getting good at targeting their campaigns, I do like money and there is no way they could ever guess that!
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Fraudulent Disclaimer?
What the message implies to me, in my opinion, is possible malpractice, for how else could Mike be receiving mail that "subject to attorney-client privilege and contains confidential information" that is not actually his? Are such boiler plate disclaimers merely written in the expectation of possible malpractice on the part of the attorney and his/her staff?
And, I'll, bet that that same sig is used for all the attorney's e-mail, even when it isn't about a client and contains no privileged info. Not all info an attorney handles is privileged, so, again IMO, the disclaimer is likely fraudulent misrepresentation much of the time.
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Once upon a time...
I was on the phone to compliance and legal at least twice a week because I read something I wasn't supposed to. (Hey, if it's in my inbox and isn't obvious spam, I'm going to look)
Oh I could have been rich if I were as honest as your typical lawyer or politician. ;)
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Boilerplate
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Re: Boilerplate
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Fiduciary duty solved! Easy.
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Re: Re: Boilerplate
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Who's At Fault
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Re: Who's At Fault
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Just thought of something
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Email disclaimers: threats, adhesions, and pretty much all-around stupidity
See for example:
Stupid E-mail Disclaimers and the Stupid Users that Use Them at http://attrition.org/security/rants/z/disclaimers.html
and
Don't Send Bogus Legalistic Boilerplate at http://www.river.com/users/share/etiquette/#legalistic
As the latter correctly points out:
First, such boilerplate contains useless adhesions, meaning the explicit and implied threats they make are particularly annoying. If you send something via email, the recipients (are you sure you aren't sending to a mailing list?) and anyone else who sees your clear text postcard in transit can undetectably and with full deniability do whatever they want with the information written on it in plain view. Even casual users of email know email is not a secure communications medium. Thus the threats in typical bogus legalistic boilerplate are naught but an attempt at highly improper intimidation. Demands made in this manner will be regarded as evidence of a hostile attitude on your part by a significant portion of recipients. The threats will negatively affect how your recipients perceive the other ideas in your message.
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One of these days, I'm going to reply with "By communicating with this email address, you grant permanent, irrevocable, retroactive permission to me to post any and all messages from you to the of this address to the internet for the purpose of ridicule."
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Re: Returning email and wishful thinking
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Legally binding?
What prevents me from putting something like this in the footer and taking someone to court over it:
You the recipient agree to pay me the sender $500 for receipt of this email. Payment is due within 90 days. Please reply to this email within 72hrs to arrange payment or you will be in breach of this agreement.
Can I?
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Re: Legally binding?
Basically why you would lose is because there is no contract since unless they actually reply there is no "acceptance by conduct" which is what EULA's are based on.
Also there is no consideration. No exchange of worth, no quid pro quo, no sufficiency, and definitely no forbearance nor past dealings.
Not to matter there was definitely no intention to create legal relations on the part of the recipient.
Without any of the above, no contract can be created, even if there is a so called offer (you sending) and acceptance (they receiving) of the contractual obligation.
It's the same for nearly all of these so called one sided Non Disclosure agreements that are within emails nowadays because people don't want publicity (especially attorneys sending nastygrams).
They are bogus, are really psychological FUD, and have no weight in law and can as Charlie Hustle above stated, come back to bite them right on the Arse later.
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Holy May-day batman!
Quick, to the bunker!!!
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I love to say this(not really)
They send you a random letter..
and tell you NOT to open unless this is REALLY YOU(to protect themselves)
You OPEN it, to see if ANYTHING, MAY, Pertain to you...or just to be nosey..Or to find out if there is any info as to the person IT SHOULD GO TO..
The attachment AUTO OPENS, and AUTO RUNS a web site..and installs a Background virus... or an auto exec that HAS to be run on start up(and only loops) so your machine wont START..
AT LEAST with the post office, you could hand it INTO the window..After scratching off the Address..and someone ELSE delt with it.
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Destroy all copies!
I'd tell you what was IN the email, except I'm not sure if having the email addressed to me counts as being a party to the communication. It seems like someone just barely remembered to make it legal to "intercept" a communication to which you are a party. Good thing, because they defined "intercept" as "acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device." This is SO broad they actually had to make an exception for hearing aids.
The law itself can be found at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_119.html
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2 Nights ago, I got an email from a online take-away ordering system, telling me that my order of a can of Sprite and my Pizza Tandoori was on its way. (seconds later came another email telling me that the order was cancelled by the system, because they didn't trust my email)
Yesterday, I got an email from a restaurant responding to a complaint about how their food had made someone ill. Apparently that someone had given my email address as their own.
It's almost everyday now I get email not intended for me.
If some lawyer decides to sue me for opening my email, they'll have another thing coming. They make a mistake in the address, then it's no fault of mine if I open it.
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I Don't Understand
1. RE/MAX is NOT in the business of selling tickets of any sort, just real_estate and ONLY real_estate.
2. Medical data???? What's HIPAA got to do with anything?
3. You should move/copy the attachments to an isolated computer and open them just to see what's what.
4. Sounds very much like spam or malware.
5. Has anyone checked out this alleged attorney?
Somethin's fishy.
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Re: I Don't Understand
1: The RE/MAX thing was not related to the selling of the tickets, that was actually second email.
2: The attorney may be working for a hospital, and have used a boilerplate disclaimer at the bottom of his email, because of his work at a hospital.
3: Sound advice, but why should we? Why not just toss the email out instead of opening it?
4: It's generally not spam. Sure spammers also send stuff unsolicited, and often mis-addressed. But that's not the case in what Mike is telling here, and not what I have said in one of my previous comments. In my case, I usually send an email back saying they've reached the wrong person, and that I hope they have another way of contacting them. If it's happened that I get email destined for the same person multiple times in a row, I ask the sender to notify said person to pay closer attention to what email address they use.
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They then know its a viable EMail.
Then if they can match it up to other data they find on the net..
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And it's quite obvious when it's spam and when it isn't. It would take too much effort to make spam look like this.
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Using my email as a 'throw-away' address
However, I periodically get emails from companies where someone gave my email adddress as theirs - thinking that nobody would ever see it.
I have news for you - I did. I've cancelled numerous accounts with companies like Monster.com, gaming sites, etc. Sometimes, I wait until the person who used my account has racked up gaming points before I will change the password.
I also had a woman use my address at several auto dealers in California. Guess what? I sent the dealers an email saying that she used a bogus email address, so what else about her might be suspect? If she was applying for credit to buy a car, the dealers might have second thoughts.
I seldom cancel these accounts - I normally just screw with your profile (if I'm in a nasty mood) and then change the password so you can't undo the damage.
If you don't want things like this happening to you, use your own email address!
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I ran this through my gibberish translator.
NOTE: This e-mail message (including attachments) is subject to attorney-client privilege and contains confidential information intended only for the person(s) to whom this email message is addressed. This e-mail may be covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521, which provides criminal penalties for your use of this email without permission. This message may contain Protected Health Information covered under HIPAA Rules and HITECH Standards including, but not limited to, all applicable requirements of the HIPAA Security rule in 45 C.F.R. §§ 164.308, 164.310,164.312 and 164.316, including any amendments thereto. If you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone or e-mail and destroy the original message without making a copy.
Translation: I am a careless idiot, but if necessary, it will be proven your fault in a court of law. Neener, neener, neener!
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