Wiping a File Under Solaris

If you need to securely erase a file under Solaris, packages are available for the wipe utility, which will erase a file in such a way that its contents can not be recovered from a disk.

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Read Receipt For Messages Sent With Pine

I needed to know if a Microsoft Outlook user had read time critical email I was about to send from Pine, which is the email client I normally use. After a Google search and a little experimentation, I found that adding the facility to Pine to request read receipts that Outlook will understand is fairly simple.

When a user sends a message from Microsoft Outlook requesting a read receipt when the message is read, Outlook adds the header "Disposition-Notification-To:" to the message. You can add the same header to an outgoing email message from Pine. To do so, take the following steps (these steps were tested on Pine 4.44, but should work for other versions as well):

1. From Pine's main menu, hit "S" for "Setup".
2. Hit "C" for "Config".
3. You can either use the cursor keys to move down through the configuration items to find "customized-hdrs" or you can hit "W" for "WhereIs" and search for "cutomized-hders" to find it more quickly.
4. Hit "A" for "Add Value" and add Disposition-Notification-To:. If you already have another custom header, the new header will be inserted before it in the custom headers list (see Changing Pine "From" Address for adding a custom header to allow you to modify your "From" address). If you don't specify an email address after Disposition-Notitication-To:, then you can choose whether a particular message goes out with a read-receipt requested when you compose a message.
5. After adding header, hit "E" to exit Setup.
6. When asked to accept changes, answer "Y", which will return you to Pine's main menu.

Now you compose a message the way you normally would, but hit Ctrl-R while the cursor is in one of the message header fields, e.g. the "To" or "Subject" field, to get "Rich Headers". Before, I modified my personal Pine configuration settings, I would see the following "Rich Headers".

From    : John Doe <johndoe123@moonpoint.com>
To      :
Cc      :
Bcc     :
Newsgrps:
Fcc     : sent-mail
Lcc     :
Attchmnt:
Subject :
----- Message Text -----

But with the "Disposition-Notification-To:" header added, I now see the following:

From    : John Doe <johndoe123@moonpoint.com>
To      :
Cc      :
Bcc     :
Newsgrps:
Fcc     : sent-mail
Lcc     :
Attchmnt:
Subject :
Disposit:
----- Message Text -----

In the "Disposit:" field I can then type the address I want to receive the read receipt, e.g. johndoe123@moonpoint.com. I can then finish composing my message and send it as I normally would. When the Outlook user receives the message, he will be prompted as to whether he wishes to send the read receipt. If he chooses "yes" in Outlook, I will get a read receipt and know the time he read the message. If you don't need a read receipt for a particular message, you simply omit putting an email address in the "Disposit:" field.

References:

1. Using Elm, Berkeley mail, or Pine, how do I know if my message has been delivered?
2. Delivery and Read Receipts

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