Oh, no, net mail is http://wordtothewise.com/2009/03/email ... d-forward/]store-and-forward -- every server between sender and recipient should have a copy, at least for a little while. It's only between "adjacent" systems that the email is directly handed off from origin to destination. This is obscured (by design) in email as it exists today -- the mail system handles the routing transparently -- but in the primordial days of UUCP you used to have to specify the entire route yourself as the address for your mail -- the old http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/B/bang-path.html]"Bang Path" system, so called because you basically listed every machine between you and the recipient, separated by "!"s (like "MyDepartmentServer!MainServer!BigRouter!TheirDepartmentServer!SpecificServer!jsmith").
So yeah, the IRS claiming the emails were lost is pretty disingenuous. About the only way the emails could really be completely gone is if someone went in and deleted them from every system they ever resided on. And if they did that, they might as well be wearing signs around their necks saying "We've got something to hide".
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
So yeah, the IRS claiming the emails were lost is pretty disingenuous. About the only way the emails could really be completely gone is if someone went in and deleted them from every system they ever resided on. And if they did that, they might as well be wearing signs around their necks saying "We've got something to hide".
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.