How old is the email under question?

Less than a year old? It's about my Dad, so May or later.

If the sent items in Mail are not easily manipulated, she can call for a mobile notary to come to the house, log in, verify, print with full headers and stamp. Where's the flaw in this? It seems like the answer so long as you're willing to pay the mobile notary and she totally is.

I mean, that probably won't work if it goes to court but the whole point of this is to avoid that mess.

All a notary can do is sign that you or your mom is stating that the document is an exact copy. The notary does not actually verify the exactness. Think of a deposition, compelling truthfulness, that is what the notary is doing. If it is found to not be an exact copy, then you are liable for purgery.

Cass,

echoing Suzi, in my experience with notaries, they can only verify that they saw your license and that you signed a document on a particular date. they can't (usually) do more than that - like certify authenticity.

If you want that step, I would probably see if you can get a certified tech person to take a look at the email and do a statement to the effect that the mail does not seem to be tampered with, etc. A mac specialist probably can do a deep file comparison on the Mail files and also state when the last time was that the file was changed (and perhaps what kind of changes were made).

You might be able to see if someone at the Apple Store can do this for you - and if they would charge a fee if you don't want to do the school/university route. There are probably grad students in Computer Sciences/Engineering who might be able to help (and are certified to work on macs).

FWIW, do you have a Legal Aid near you? You might be able to get some advice from them regarding how to word the letter.

The notary does not actually verify the exactness.

Thus my question on how easily manipulated the Sent mail is in Mail. Because this plan only works if it isn't. Not because she'd have changed it but it'd be worthless if it was known to be easily changed.

Hmm. is the company your fam dealing with technical experts?

Do you think it would satisfy them to know all she did was print the email messages and have a stranger verify that?

She's contacted her lawyer and sent copies of everything. But if there is a quicker and easier way to make the person at the company admit that they edited the email she sent them (basically that they lied or tried to lie or made a mistake) and have this part be over? Well, over is good.

I would probably see if you can get a certified tech person to take a look at the email and do a statement to the effect that the mail does not seem to be tampered with, etc. A mac specialist probably can do a deep file comparison on the Mail files and also state when the last time was that the file was changed (and perhaps what kind of changes were made).

It's the finding a certified tech person. I don't know where to look.

I was a notary in California for a bunch of years. There are two main statements a notary can sign. One is verifying that the person signing is who he/she says he/she is. The other is to compel truthfulness. The notary actually has the person swear (or affirm) that the statements contained in the document are true.

Do you think it would satisfy them to know all she did was print the email messages and have a stranger verify that?

It really might.

It was just one person who tampered with her email. If it comes down to a fight, better to say you made a mistake and not get into such the kind of battle where you lose your job because you attempted to tamper with email from a client.

The other is to compel truthfulness. The notary actually has the person swear (or affirm) that the statements contained in the document are true.

That part is easy peasy enough. It's a question of whether sent Mail is generally assumed to be pretty untamperable by someone with very limited tech knowledge.

Okay, the NAS is up and running. Configuration is taking longer than it should because I, of course, am dithering about volume allocation.

I think what I'm ending up with is 3TB to replicate the 3TB Time Machine. Which is a little excessive because with the RAID it means I'll be storing those data four times, and of course the Time Machine backups themselves are multiple versions of the data. But they're the most important data.

So then 1TB for the regular workhorse backups, which are mostly office type files, instead of audio or video. And then 1TB for the media server stuff. If that works. Which I think it will.

And when I expand, then I'll spread that additional 5TB doubling the 2TB, and add the last 3TB as an additional volume on the same disk group which will serve as the long term project storage.

Now I just have to decide what to do with the existing NAS. I could still have it backing up the Windows machines, would would make the number of copies the same as for the Mac machine, but because I don't think I can use the Synology DSM to manage it, it would mean two methods of backup, stored in two different ways, which I think is asking for trouble. So I think maybe for now I'll use it as the long term project storage until I get upgraded, because that is now and will be a manual process.