Electronic message journaling

Last updated

Electronic message journaling is the process of retaining information relating to electronic messages. In this context, electronic messages are defined as any type of electronic communication data structure. Historically this was an electronic mail, but it may also include instant messages, audio messages (such as those in VoIP), text messages, facsimile messages, or other user collaboration protocol data structures. Beginning about 2005 electronic messages began to include social media that included user-generated content such as blogs, discussion forums, posts, chats, tweets, podcasting, pins, digital images, video and audio files. Several implementation variations exist, altering when, what, and how information is retained. [1] [2]

Contents

Background

Archival of electronic messages has become a concern in modern society as regulations and compliance requirements for businesses have become more prevalent with notable Congressional acts, such as Sarbanes Oxley. Other compliance areas of concern are those dealing with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 17a-4, NASD 3010, HIPAA, the Data Protection Act, and the Patriot Act. [2] Several large corporations lost significant amounts of money because of their failure to meet these compliance requirements. Morgan Stanley had a $1.45 billion judgment against it and Merrill Lynch was issued a $2.5 million fine because of its inability to reproduce e-mail transmissions. Because of growing concerns of similar repercussions, major corporations are implementing electronic message journaling to meet compliance requirements. [3]

Overview

A communication system recognizes and identifies any new outgoing or incoming message. It then creates a journal message containing information extracted from the new outgoing or incoming message. The journal message is then processed for storage while the new outgoing or incoming message is processed normally. Then, at a time of audit, reviewers may search and analyze stored journal messages. E-mail journaling is typically done at the mail server. [1] [2]

Journal message

The journal message contains, at a minimum, the following information: a copy of the content of the actual message, any related metadata such as time, date, and individuals involved in the communication. More information may be included, such as a physical location of the message originator/recipient(s), a computer identifier of the message originator/recipient(s), or a class/category of message. The journal message should maintain the same transport format as the actual message so that existing communication infrastructure can be utilized. For example, an e-mail journaling message will, itself, be an e-mail message containing the journaling information as either attachments or in the body of the journaling message and may be in the MIME format. [1] [2]

Design variations and considerations

Differences between journaling and archiving

Journaling refers to capturing information about an electronic message while it is in transit. Which messages and the kind of information that is captured should be defined by a system administrator or compliance agent. The journaled message should be encrypted and users should not have access to their own journaled message store. [1] Archiving, on the other hand, is primarily dedicated for backing up communications or removing them from their original location to an off-site location. Archiving generally does not occur while the electronic message is in transit and users may have access to their own archived messages. The journaling system may, however, be used as a communication interface to the archival system. [2]

Implementations

Microsoft Exchange

Microsoft released a journaling feature in service packs for Exchange 2000 and 2003, during 2004. Microsoft's journaling feature uses real-time journaling to a journaling mailbox. The journaling feature uses a rule-based selection to determine whether an e-mail should be journaled. If any of the sender or recipients, even recipients of an expanded distribution list, have their journaling setting enabled, then the e-mail is journaled. [2] [4]

Lotus Domino

IBM originally released a journaling feature in Lotus Domino 6, during 2002. IBM's journaling feature allows for copying every email as it is processed by the mail server to either a local database at the mail server or a dedicated remote database. IBM's journaling feature uses a rule-based selection to determine whether an e-mail should or should not be journaled. If properties about the e-mail match pre-defined administrator rule settings the e-mail will be journaled. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email</span> Mail sent using electronic means

Electronic mail is a method of transmitting and receiving messages using electronic devices. It was conceived in the late–20th century as the digital version of, or counterpart to, mail. Email is a ubiquitous and very widely used communication medium; in current use, an email address is often treated as a basic and necessary part of many processes in business, commerce, government, education, entertainment, and other spheres of daily life in most countries.

In computing, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection. IMAP is defined by RFC 9051.

Within the Internet email system, a message transfer agent (MTA), or mail transfer agent, or mail relay is software that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to another using SMTP. The terms mail server, mail exchanger, and MX host are also used in some contexts.

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typically use SMTP only for sending messages to a mail server for relaying, and typically submit outgoing email to the mail server on port 587 or 465 per RFC 8314. For retrieving messages, IMAP is standard, but proprietary servers also often implement proprietary protocols, e.g., Exchange ActiveSync.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email client</span> Computer program used to access and manage a users email

An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instant messaging</span> Form of communication over the Internet

Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and triggers a transmission to the recipient(s), who are all connected on a common network. It differs from email in that conversations over instant messaging happen in real-time. Most modern IM applications use push technology and also add other features such as emojis, file transfer, chatbots, voice over IP, or video chat capabilities.

Mbox is a generic term for a family of related file formats used for holding collections of email messages. It was first implemented in Fifth Edition Unix.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voicemail</span> Voice message storage and retrieval

A voicemail system is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to individuals, organizations, products, and services, using an ordinary phone. The term is also used more broadly to denote any system of conveying a stored telecommunications voice messages, including using an answering machine. Most cell phone services offer voicemail as a basic feature; many corporate private branch exchanges include versatile internal voice-messaging services, and *98 vertical service code subscription is available to most individual and small business landline subscribers.

X.400 is a suite of ITU-T recommendations that define the ITU-T Message Handling System (MHS).

In computer science, message queues and mailboxes are software-engineering components typically used for inter-process communication (IPC), or for inter-thread communication within the same process. They use a queue for messaging – the passing of control or of content. Group communication systems provide similar kinds of functionality.

Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems.

Email filtering is the processing of email to organize it according to specified criteria. The term can apply to the intervention of human intelligence, but most often refers to the automatic processing of messages at an SMTP server, possibly applying anti-spam techniques. Filtering can be applied to incoming emails as well as to outgoing ones.

The Cyrus IMAP server is electronic mail server software developed by Carnegie Mellon University. It differs from other Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) server implementations in that it is generally intended to be run on sealed servers, where normal users cannot log in.

Push email is an email system that provides an always-on capability, in which when new email arrives at the mail delivery agent (MDA), it is immediately, actively transferred (pushed) by the MDA to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the email client, so that the end-user can see incoming email immediately. This is in contrast with systems that check for new incoming mail every so often, on a schedule. Email clients include smartphones and, less strictly, IMAP personal computer mail applications.

An email loop is an infinite loop phenomenon, resulting from mail servers, scripts, or email clients that generate automatic replies or responses. If one such automatic response triggers another automatic response on the other side, an email loop is created. The process can continue until one mailbox is full or reaches its mail sending limit. In theory, the email loop could last indefinitely. Email loops may be caused accidentally or maliciously, causing denial of service. Although rare, email loops involving more than two participants can also occur.

Email encryption is encryption of email messages to protect the content from being read by entities other than the intended recipients. Email encryption may also include authentication.

Email archiving is the act of preserving and making searchable all email to/from an individual. Email archiving solutions capture email content either directly from the email application itself or during transport. The messages are typically then stored on magnetic disk storage and indexed to simplify future searches. In addition to simply accumulating email messages, these applications index and provide quick, searchable access to archived messages independent of the users of the system using a couple of different technical methods of implementation. The reasons a company may opt to implement an email archiving solution include protection of mission critical data, to meet retention and supervision requirements of applicable regulations, and for e-discovery purposes. It is predicted that the email archiving market will grow from nearly $2.1 billion in 2009 to over $5.1 billion in 2013.

Secure messaging is a server-based approach to protect sensitive data when sent beyond the corporate borders, and it provides compliance with industry regulations such as HIPAA, GLBA and SOX. Advantages over classical secure e-mail are that confidential and authenticated exchanges can be started immediately by any internet user worldwide since there is no requirement to install any software nor to obtain or to distribute cryptographic keys beforehand. Secure messages provide non-repudiation as the recipients are personally identified and transactions are logged by the secure email platform.

The history of Microsoft Exchange Server begins with the first Microsoft Exchange Server product - Exchange Server 4.0 in April 1996 - and extends to the current day.

The history of email entails an evolving set of technologies and standards that culminated in the email systems in use today.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Tulisalo; et al. (2002-12-01). "Upgrading to Lotus Notes and Domino 6" . Retrieved 2008-10-07.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Exchange Server Documentation Team (2006-12-12). "Journaling with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003". Microsoft . Retrieved 2008-10-07.
  3. ↑ McDougall; et al. (2006-09-21). "Financial Firms Are Struggling to Manage, Archive and Monitor the Exponentially Growing Volume of Corporate E-mail" . Retrieved 2008-10-08.
  4. 1 2 Jain; et al. (2006-04-06). "US Patent Application Publication 2006/0075032 A1" . Retrieved 2008-06-19.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.