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Registered Receipt FAQs
How and when do I receive my
Registered Receipt e-mail?
You will automatically receive the
Registered Receipt e-mail in your e-mail inbox after
a few minutes or hours - but within one business day
of sending -- depending on such factors as the
receivers' system, if there is a delivery failure
(mailbox full, wrong address, etc.), or if there was
a large number of recipients in the address field of
the original e-mail. The Registered Receipt e-mail
is the only permanent record you will receive
detailing the status of your sent e-mail, - proof
of its delivery and its content. If desired, RPost
can send the sender a duplicate which can be
archived in a master back-up system for future
verification.
Why does it take a long time to
get the Registered Receipt e-mail back?
The time it takes to receive the
Registered Receipt e-mail depends on the receiver’s
system and the number of addresses included in the
delivery field. It is typically sent within a half
an hour to a few hours with a maximum of six hours.
As a place holder, the RPost system gives the sender
an immediate Acknowledgement™ e-mail as confirmation
that the sender’s Registered E-mail message actually
left their outbound server, arrived at RPost and is
in processing. Since RPost wants to report the
highest level of delivery available within a
reasonable amount of time, often more time is
required to glean sufficient delivery information
and those operating parameters are set based upon
more than seven years of delivery statistics.
How does RPost prove if a
Registered Receipt e-mail has or has not been
tampered with?
RPost Registered Receipt™ e-mail are
electronically sealed and tamper detectable
documents and use sophisticated encryption
techniques. When the Registered Receipt e-mail is
forwarded to the RPost Registration System, the
RPost Digital Seal™ marks are compared to the ones
that are instantly regenerated for verification.
RPost receipts incorporate two forms of encryption
algorithms, the SHA-1 hash and Triple DES algorithm.
RPost uses encryption components which are based on
open cryptographic standards - the algorithms
defined by these standards are the most widely used
in the world today, and are counted among the
strongest available in the commercial sector. They
are tested for compliance with these standards by
independent laboratories, and validated by the
United States Government. In short, if the two sets
of originally recorded digital fingerprints do not
line up during the verification process, the system
knows that something has been altered, but not the
specific word, punctuation, etc. that was altered –
hence, “tamper-detectable” as opposed to
“tamper-proof” for unencrypted Registered E-mail
messages.
What is the difference among the
four possible delivery status levels on the
Registered Receipt e-mail?
There are four levels of delivery
reported in the Registered Receipt e-mail: The
difference amongst the three "delivered"
dispositions has to do with how much information
RPost can elicit about the delivery to determine the
status.
1. DELIVERY FAILURE:
This might occur if there is an
e-mail address error or the receiver's mailbox is
full, among other reasons.
2. DELIVERED TO MAIL SERVER:
This is the minimum requirement for a
document to be deemed as legally delivered according
to government definitions. When the receiver's
authorized electronic agent signs the message, RPost
deems it delivered. In parallel, with courier or
overnight service, certified or registered mail, a
document is deemed delivered when the receiver's
authorized agent (i.e. mailroom clerk, receptionist)
signs for the document. The E-Sign and similar acts
give e-mail transmissions equal status to paper
transmissions, in most circumstances.
3. DELIVERED TO MAILBOX:
This means that the RPost System is
certain that the e-mail was accepted by the
recipient’s agent and that agent placed that e-mail
in the recipient’s mailbox. A physical mail analogy
is your assistant signing for a delivery and putting
it on your desk.
4. OPENED:
This means the recipient, or a
designee with access to their e-mail, opened that
e-mail. A physical mail analogy is when you sign for
a package yourself. If the RPost system can detect
“Opening” with confidence after the Registered
Receipt™ e-mail is returned to the sender, then the
RPost system will return a follow-on Open Receipt™
e-mail at the point in time that the e-mail was
detected to have been opened.
It is important to note that if the
Registered Receipt e-mail does not indicate
“Opening,” that does not necessarily mean the e-mail
was not “Opened”. It means the e-mail was either not
opened or the system could not determine with
confidence that the e-mail was opened. No system can
determine “Opening” all of the time.
What does UTC mean in the time
field on the Delivery Status of the Registered
Receipt e-mail?
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) -
the new standard world time, is Greenwich Mean Time
(GMT) less daylight savings. UTC uses a 24-hour
system of time notation. To convert from UTC to your
local time you need to add or subtract hours, based
on daylight savings. For example, Eastern Standard
Time subtract 5 hours from UTC, Pacific Standard
Time subtract 8 hours from UTC (with daylight
savings).
What is the history/audit trail
area in the Registered Receipt e-mail?
It records the Internet delivery
history, the dialog between the recipient's mail
server and the RPost Registration Systems.
What are the three attachments on
the Registered Receipt e-mail?
RPost does not keep any e-mail
messages or attachments on the RPost Registration
Systems. All of the data required to reconstruct and
validate the original e-mail, attachments, and
transaction information is is compressed into a
file, attached to the Registered Receipt e-mail and
returned to the sender authentication-ready for use
in case of a dispute. The second attachment is an
HTML version of the Registered Receipt e-mail for
people who receive it in Plain Text and want to view
it in their browser. The third attachment is a
digital fingerprint needed to validate and
re-construct the original e-mail message in the
event of a dispute. The receipt and attachments
associated must remain together for verification
purposes.
How long does RPost store the
Registered Receipt e-mail?
RPost does NOT store the Registered
Receipt e-mail or your e-mail message content or
attachments. Because RPost does not store the
information on its network (to avoid possession of
discoverable information) the original content has
to be stored by the e-mail sender in the form of the
Registered Receipt e-mail. |
