Sent Items Logging

As requested by LowWaterMark in this thread:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=5507;start=0

a new topic is being started.
*** ********* ********* ***


Most here at the forum is awear that the index dat file keeps a hidden record. Following the steps outlined in the above listed post I did a quick search a it does appear the this "Sent Items" folder does the same thing to a large extent. A complete listing of every program on my os plus every third part program plus un-installed programs was listed in this sent items folder. Also listed was many url's many do appear to possibly be related to program update features but not sure as yet.
This appears to be related to OutLook Express the e-mail client but feel free to correct this assumption. But why would so much os information be logged in the Sent Items folder?? One of the programmers here may be able to advise on tthat question.
if the index dat file is cleaned for reasons of privacy should not the Sent Items folder also be cleaned? After all what third party programs a person installs on his/her own computer is no one's business. There is also a legal issue of such information being used as evidence. Entrapment at its best. For a law abidding person that may not seem an issue......nevertheless it violates a person's privacy.
This is being posted for whatever comments..pro/con may be forthcoming. I wont post my personal thoughts/opinion.

Regards

Snowman

 

Note: A person selling his/her computer will send this information on with the computer.....a wipe did not remove it.

 

according to M$:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q198854


well guess what..that does not work...at least not in my case....save items sent has always been un-checked by me...but I got the listings anyway. Don't seem to be much interest in this topic so wont waste my time with further posting


link fixed by FanJ

 

Hi Snowman,

I only just saw that you started this new thread.
As I just have posted in the other thread, I seem not to have any of those things, which you are talking about, in that folder "sent items.dbx".

 

Hi Snowman,

I AM interested !!!
I only don't understand why you have those things there and I did not !

 

Jan..yes., just replied to your other post....please excuse me....this is very disturbing.....nothing should be in my sent items folder.......security is set right according to M$ yet my entire os is in there......third party programs..unknown url's.....
this sure upsets me


snowman

 

Jan

the only way I can answer your question properly is to say that my entire C drive is listed in the sent items fold......



snowman

going to shut down and try to find an answer

 

JAN

GOOD NEWS! PROBLEM RESOLVED!! my friend you perhaps unknowingly provided the answer to this problem.....an I very sincerely thank you. In the sent items folder was every program that I use.....an seeing them listed there blew my cork......rarely does anything get me as emotional as this did......
The contents of the Sent Items folder is now deleted.
Seems M$ failed to provided proper instructions.....normal for M$. Seeing what your setting were Jan I just duplicated...an it worked!! It appears that its not enough to just check Delete sent items.....to actually enable the feature "Delete news messages "X" days after being downloaded" must also be checked..........then the delete in maintance works. Sure hope our friend Butthead reads this...I owe him/her one for advising........an also grateful to you Jan.........
to some this may not have appeared as an issue.....well..an I shudder to even think about what could happen if the computer was given away with these still not deleted......
Being a person who never uses e-mail I never knew of this issue....never even gave it a thought.....would never have given it a thought....whew!....I wonder how many other people don't know of this?
Will always wonder how it was that the contents of the entire C drive got listed in that folder...........an where did those unknown url's come from.......
IMO this is a definite security issue....just my HO

Have a wonderful Christmas friend Jan......I would not let the season pass without coming to the forum to wish you all the greatest joy of the season

Sincerely

Snowman

 

Hi snowman,

I just got real interested in this topic. In my sent items file there is some stuff related to this forum, dated from 10/10/02 TO 10/20/02. The outbox file contains some firewall logs. The inbox file has some of my programs listed with version numbers and locations. There is a file called Pop3uidl.dbx containing something related to a post over at Becky's. I would be most interested to know why any of this stuff would be at these locations. And even more interested in how to get it out of there. Went back and checked the boxes related to the newsgroups also and then hit every delete or remove button in sight. No effect.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Hey Snowy!

I think there's a LOT of interest here. With a name like Snowman you - of all people - should remember the hustle and bustle of the holidays has more than a few away from the board.

Good to see you posting.

Happiest of holidays to you!!

John
Luv2BSecure

 

Oh! One thing about Outlook Express - don't ever just "delete" from the delete bin. Most of us have tracks eraser/wiping utilities of some kind ( or probably should if you don't) - and most allow you to make plug-ins or make "custom wiping" paths.

Always delete email you don't want to the delete folder in Outlook Express... and then WIPE the delete folder with your eraser, It re-creates itself upon reboot.

John
Luv2BSecure

 

Hello Jooske,

Opened the files with notepad. Lot of the stuff in there is unintelligible this way, but can see enough to get my attention. Earlier when I checked the deleted items.dbx everything encrypted. Just before coming back here, checked e-mail, deleted without opening anything, then deleted from the deleted items folder as well, went to options and deleted from there as well. Rechecked the .dbx and not only were the e-mails there, but could read them as well.

luv2bsecure, concerning what you said about wiping the delete folder. Could the delete folder be dragged to a shredder(like in Spybot S&D, for example) and then recreate itself at boot, or am I heading down the wrong path here? If this is what you mean, how about the inbox and outbox, etc. that I mentioned before?

 

The .dbx files are Microsoft Outlook Express folders and inboxes.


If you are using Outlook Express 5 you can find the files by doing a Windows 'Find' for *.dbx files. For OE4 try *.mbx

This link may clear up some mysteries for you.
http://content.techweb.com/winmag/fixes/2001/05.htm


By Dave Methvin

Updated February 9, 2001
(Saving Outlook Express Stuff and creating a backup for your mail so you never lose it again.)



Subject: Outlook Express!!

Losing mail can ruin your Day:

Mail, Love It -- Hate It Isn't It Great. So why is so little attention paid to good email backup? Most mail programs give you no help with the task. How do they expect you to recover your email after a crash, or move your mail to a new system? This week I'll give you some tips on how to prevent or recover from an email disaster in Outlook Express, the most-used email client on the Internet.


Emergency Data Recovery
Although .DBX files aren't plain text files, they do have the full text of your messages inside them. You can open them in WordPad in a pinch and extract important pieces of text. That's useful if the file becomes corrupted and OE can't read it. For example, OE may crash when you try to read a message in the folder or show that a folder is empty, even though the corresponding .DBX file is very big. In that case, rename the .DBX file to a .TXT extension and open it with WordPad. Then copy out whatever important text you can, and recreate a new folder in OE.


Also....

OLEXP: HotMail Messages Disappear in Outlook Express Folders (Q253474)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q253474




OL2000: Differences Between Outlook and Outlook Express (Q257824)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q257824



OL2000: Outlook Does Not Receive MSN E-mail Messages (Q268732)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q268732


Read your MSN Internet Access e-mail on MSN Explorer
----------------------------------------------------

This program is based on MSN Hotmail, which is a Web-based e-mail service. When you upgrade to MSN Explorer, your e-mail Inbox will be converted from POP3 e-mail to Web-based e-mail automatically. This means all of your new e-mail will come to you in MSN Explorer and not in Outlook Express. If you need to see your old e-mail, you will be able to see it in Outlook Express.

Important details about your e-mail and newsgroups:

- You will not lose any e-mail. - Your e-mail address will not change - Your will receive all your new e-mail in MSN Explorer instead of Outlook Express. - Your old e-mail will remain in Outlook Express. - Your address book will be copied to MSN Explorer. It will also remain in Outlook Express. - You can access your newsgroups through Outlook Express.

Uninstalling MSN Explorer and reinstalling a prior version of MSN Internet Access will not switch your e-mail account back to your previous program.

One big benefit of the MSN Explorer e-mail system is that it allows you to access your e-mail form any computer around the world with an Internet connection! You must be connected to the Internet to get your e-mail.

Because Web-based e-mail does not require Outlook Express, some e-mail features have changed. For example, your address book is now web-based so you can access information on your contacts from any computer.




If you have any more question on email you will find the answer at these two links.

Microsoft Knowledge Base Dealing with OE and email
http://home.attbi.com/~jimpickering/


Inside Outlook Espress
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideOE/faqs/index.htm

 

Which is why I asked javacool to come up with a program that would "blast" all sent and received dbx folders a long time ago (hey, he's been busy, what can I say? ).

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=4278

 

Well now I'm interested. I have never once used Outlook Express since reformatting my drive a few months ago. I have no Sent.dbx file, but in my Inbox.dbx, there were many listings, mainly dealing with this forum(as was the case with Vietnam_Vet).
What is M$ doing? I don't touch a program, yet it tracks me!
Anybody got a Red Hat for sale?
Douglas

 

I never had the pleasure of using any of the Microsoft email client programs or their MSN Messenger all these years. It is bloatware and too many other alternatives out there to do the same job.

 

Hi Primrose,
But as I said in my previous post, I have never once touched OE, yet it has logged me.

Douglas

 

Hello,

After deleting posts in OE, it's still possible to read ALL *.dbx files with DBXtract as just the path to the msgs is suppressed.

Info and d/l : http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

The same tool exist for *.pst files (Outllook)

Go to OE>Maintenance and press "Compact" after deleting.

Then you will not be able to read them any longer.

Rgds,

JacK

 

A very good morning to all....wishing everyone the best of days.


Like just about everyone else I do not use outlook express....nor any other e mail client...an was obviously upset to see such tracking.........there may be a very simple explanation..if so I would be most interested in hearing it.
But one thing I wont do is trust M$ on this issue...the instructions given by M$ were totally incorrect.
Vet and Doug........were you guys able to delete the contents of the folder or the folder..as yet? It took me a few moments to do so but finally deleted the contents.....
I noticed the there is also an opinion to have the choice of where to store such information.....to another folder.....I will mess around with that tonight perhaps.
Like Lov2B my first thought was to erase the folder then let the os re-make a new folder......but was not sure if the os would do so.........an also wanted to make certain that in the future such information would not be logged again without a quick way of deleting it........also as John suggest.........erasing is highly suggested.....I sure did so.
I noticed that after deletion there remained some brief programing inside the sent items folder.....wondering about that.
This was not something that sat well with me...so much stored information under any circumstances can not be considered tolarable...imho.........in my sent items folder was a copy of a e-mail sent to me......good golly Ms Molly.....

will drop back later......best to all

snowman

 

I made a mistake, sorry !
I have the Dutch version of Windows and OE.
So I should not have looked at "sent items.dbx" but at its Dutch version "verzonden items.dbx".

 

Yep about that "compact"; I also posted that at the other thread (closed in the meanwhile).

Copy from the Helpfile of Express Assist (a program to make backup of your OE):
[hr]
Before making a backup file, please compact all of the mail folders [[From the Outlook Express menu, select File\Folders\Compact all folders]].

Compacting the folders removes the mail messages which have been deleted or moved. Prior to this, they are merely marked as "to be deleted". If you create a backup without compacting, it will take more time and space. In addition, when you restore you may be surprised to see messages that you thought had been deleted.

 

Following Jan's settings is how I deleted the contents of that folder. an yes...I also did a "compact"....sorry I forgot to mention that earlier..........

 

By the ways....I also cleaned System Restore.....otherwise it would replace those deleted entries if a restore was done.

 

I am actively looking into it.

Just name the features you would want (including file names and locations you would want to have the option of cleaning), and I'll see what I can do. (I am quite busy, but I'll work on it around other projects.)

Best regards,

-Javacool