Emails are notoriously hard to validate. Emails are like typed, signed contracts with no section or page numbers: you can take out or add whatever pages you want as long as you keep the signatures.
Intelligence expert Malcom Nance has tweeted that Wikileaks’ recent collection of Podesta emails contain “obvious forgeries.” It is hard to detect emails forgeries in general, but easy to find obvious forgeries. For details, check out Chapter 15 of Elementary Information Security, my textbook.
I searched recent news reports highlighting specific Podesta emails. I looked at about a dozen of those emails, plus similar “unimportant” emails. I checked the email delivery data for tampering or forgery. The email headers look correct. Thus there are no “obvious forgeries.”
I’m not often a fan of conspiracy theories, except for entertainment value. This one is interesting because it combines international intrigue, the elections, and our world of notoriously poor email security.
