How to do hidden lists

[Latearrival]

Since there are so many knowledgeable people who frequent this forum, I'm hoping that someone can tell me how to send an email to a large number of contacts without displaying the email addresses. (I don't want to be responsible for anyone getting junk mail because one of my contacts puts them on another list or other nasty things that could happen.)

As well, this isn't at all important but it might be of interest to someone.....I'm curious about how to program an email to be sent at a later time. Someone I used to work with would do this so that management thought he was still at the office at midnight or some ungodly hour.:=

Thanks!
LA

[Jofm5]

Two different questions....

Your first about sending to many people without them knowing who else is copied is to use the blind carbon copy function in your email application.

Most applications will present you with a TO and CC box, but will have the option to give you a BCC (blind carbon copy) box. When using BCC everyone receives it but their names are not shown on the distribution list.

Whilst this is useful be careful when using it as those people can hit reply all and that reply will go to all on the published list - this has caught endless people out when someone "apparently" not on the distribution list replies with their comment.

On your second request.............

By default this cannot be done (sort of) - the mail protocols in use do not support delayed delivery - you may find some applications may offer this facility but it will be reliant on that application being run 24/7 to send out the required email on schedule as required. All mail servers I have encountered will mark the mail with the time of receipt - so the only way to falsefy that time is to program the source to send at the appropriate time.

[Latearrival]

Jofm5, thanks for your reply. I am aware of the bcc function and often use it when I just want to bcc one or two people. However, I didn't want to use it for the purpose I have in mind .....for the reason you mentioned--that someone could hit "reply all". So, I was hoping there was another way.

About fudging the time an email is sent....I'm wondering if things used to be different with earlier versions of Windows because I'm fairly certain the fellow in question did it from his work computer and we just had basic programs--nothing fancy. But I could be wrong.

[Jofm5]

I didn't want to use it for the purpose I have in mind

Not sure what you have in mind but the majority of mail over the internet is performed using SMTP (Simple mail transfer protocol).

Perhaps you should tell us what your trying to achieve ?


About fudging the time an email is sent....I'm wondering if things used to be different with earlier versions of Windows because I'm fairly certain the fellow in question did it from his work computer and we just had basic programs--nothing fancy. But I could be wrong.


You can easily falsify the date/time a mail was sent - within smtp you can specify the origination time.

However due to spam etc and people using the date/time to put it in the future meaning theirs would always appear on the top of the list in date order most have stopped regarding the date and time on the original email and resort to using the time/date received.

Unless you are using a mail scheduler - a server receiving email will report what was sent and also date stamp it with its own metrics allowing a more accurate picture of what has gone on.

Again - tell us what your trying to achieve ?

[Latearrival]

Perhaps you should tell us what your trying to achieve

Nothing too sinister. I want to forward an email I received from someone else and I'd like to send it to everybody on my contact list--have never done that before. I just want to make sure I won't be creating potential problems for anyone if I do that, since there are quite a few people involved.

As I said, the second question--programming the time of emails, isn't important nor is it related to sending out the group email. I was just curious. I can't imagine why I would want to do that unless I wanted to play a practical joke on someone some day. I'm sure others might think of potential uses--"I was home by 11:00--look at the email I sent.";)

[Jofm5]

Forward your email and put the recipients on the BCC and nobody will know who were the recipients of the original email

As per my first warning - anyone in the TO or CC list will be replied to if the BCC recipent does a reply to all.

If you send an email and put all recipients in the BCC list then there is no possible reprocussion as the reply to all will only go back to the sender.

My warning was more if you are going to selectively include people on a BCC as they can expose they were copied in by replying.

[Latearrival]

Thanks, Jofm5. It appears I made this unnecessarily complicated. I have recently received emails that appeared to be from a friend but that person didn't send them. So I've gotten a bit paranoid.

[Jofm5]

Ahhh you would be better of saying so from the start.

Within SMTP you have options which an also fool people as to recipents.

There are lots of ways of fooling people which the spam emailers work upon.

For example when you send an email the protocol allows you to specify a return address and a presentation name. These are the things most of the abuse comes from.

You can send an email saying your [email protected] with a reply address of [email protected] and a presentation name of NNNNNN

Anyone receiving the email will see NNN and possibly the [email protected] address and may not notice the address has changed when they try to reply.

It is incredibly easy to create the above scenario - which is why email can be so easily abused.

If your email application gives you the opportunity to look at the headers you can easily spot whats going on as the various fields are obvious - SMTP is a highly readable format to the average person.

[SuperRanger]

Don't know if this would help but it seems to work ok for me.

I enter my own email in the TO: field while all the rest in the BCC:

[BOAC]

LA - there are quite a few commercial programmes for scheduling email sending for various email clients.

[Basil]

Running Vista with Office 2007.
Outlook Help:

Create and edit a distribution list
Show All
Hide All
A distribution list is a collection of contacts (contact: Person, inside or outside of your organization, about whom you can save several types of information, such as street and e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and Web page URLs.). It provides an easy way to send e-mail messages to a group of people
That won't prevent 'Reply all'

The following may but I have not tried it:

The purpose of IRM and its limitations
Information Rights Management (IRM) allows individuals to specify access permissions to e-mail messages. By using IRM, it helps prevent sensitive information from being printed, forwarded, or copied by unauthorized people. After permission for a message has been restricted by using IRM, the access and usage restrictions are enforced no matter where the information is, because the permissions to access an e-mail message are stored in the message file itself.

IRM helps individuals enforce their personal preferences concerning the transmission of personal or private information. IRM also helps organizations enforce corporate policy governing the control and dissemination of confidential or proprietary information.

IRM helps to do the following:
Prevent an authorized recipient of restricted content from forwarding, copying, modifying, printing, faxing, or cutting and pasting the content for unauthorized use
Prevent restricted content from being copied by using the Print Screen feature in Microsoft Windows
Restrict content wherever it is sent
Provide the same level of restriction to e-mail attachments, as long as the attachments are files created by using other Microsoft Office programs, such as Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, or Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
Support file expiration so that content in documents and e-mail messages can no longer be viewed after a specified period of time
Enforce corporate policies that govern the use and dissemination of content in the company
IRM can't prevent the following:
Content from being erased, stolen, or captured and transmitted by malicious programs such as Trojan horses, keystroke loggers, and certain types of spyware
Content from being lost or corrupted because of the actions of computer viruses
Restricted content from being hand-copied or retyped from a display on a recipient's screen
A recipient from taking a digital photograph of the restricted content displayed on a screen
Restricted content from being copied by using third-party screen-capture programs
Top of Page

Configure your computer to use IRM
If you use a computer that is running Windows Vista, the Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) Client is already installed. If you use a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP, the Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) Client Service Pack 1 (SP1) must be installed on your computer either by you or your RMS administrator.

The RMS administrator can configure company-specific IRM policies that define who can access information and what level of editing is permitted for an e-mail message. For example, a company administrator might define a rights template called "Company Confidential," which specifies that an e-mail message that uses that policy can be opened only by users inside the company domain.

Delay the delivery of a single message
In the message, on the Options tab, in the More Options group, click Delay Delivery .
Click Message Options.
Under Delivery options, select the Do not deliver before check box, and then click the delivery date and time that you want.
After you click Send, the message remains in the Outbox folder until the delivery time.

Note If you are using a POP3 account, Outlook must remain open until the message is sent. To determine the type of account you are using, on the Tools menu, click Account Settings. On the E-mail tab, the Type column lists the type of accounts that are in your active Outlook profile.

Delay the delivery of all messages >>> etc etc

[Latearrival]

SuperRanger and BOAC, thank you for your responses.

Basil, thanks for all of that. Since the part about delaying messages seemed less complicated than the information about lists, I looked into that first. I now know how my co-worker was able to convince management that he was at the office until the wee hours every day. Thanks:ok:.

Incidentally, I've been using Hotmail exclusively for a number of years and as far as I can tell, "delay messages" isn't an option.When I opened Outlook Express, which was what we used at my former office, I saw that it was easy to do. Unfortunately, at the moment there's no one I want to deceive.;) Now I'll start to wade through all the stuff on lists.:confused:

[BOAC]

When I opened Outlook Express, - NB - OE's option does not set a time for sending. It looks as if you need either one of the progs I mentioned or Vista (ugh) with Office 2007

[Mornington Crescent]

It is also possible to set a time for sending using Office 2003 (Outlook)

[Latearrival]

BOAC. I should have said "Outlook"--not "Outlook Express". In my version of Outlook, although it appears that you can't set the exact time you want an email to be received, you can choose the option of not sending your email before a certain time. That may be what Morning Crescent was referring to. If one wants a more precise delivery time, those programs you mentioned would be the way to go.