accessing all mail sent and recieved on a domain

tommycahir

Hi Guys

I do some support for a company and they want to be able to see all mail sent and received from all mail addresses on their domains. Currently they are using pop3/SMTP to send and receive the mail using outlook 2007 and 2010 as the mail clients along with some iphones and ipads.

Is there any way that you can recommend that they can see all mail sent and received on their domains.

How does IMAP work if it is used to access the same mailbox across multiple PCs? i.e if 1 person reads the mail will it appear read in a persons inbox for all others PCs that are accessing the mailbox?

Regards
Tommy

kkontour

What mailserver are your using? If its exchange you could use journaling. Another option is to use an archiving company. Yhey would process your mail first, archiving all the email then sending it on to your mail server. I've been looking a a few companys doing this, Email Laundry, iCritical and McAfee email Archive SaaS.

tommycahir

It is actually a hosted domain on Blacknight so using their standard shared hosting with pop and smtp servers.

druidhill

Is it one mailbox with Blacknight and aliases, or are they seperate mailboxes?

Are you talking about having a local backup of all the emails, or every single email for the domain able to be read by a superuser?

tommycahir

They are actually separate mailboxes and they business owner wants every single email for the domain able to be read by a superuser.

I have been looking at google apps and at setting up IMAP across all the PCs but the IMAP solution seems to say that there could be delays syncing the mail etc and I am not 100% sure if google apps will do what I am looking for.

BTW I am not going to get into the legality of this request and have told them to confirm with their company solicitor before implementing this if it will infringe on any employees rights.

BaconZombie

I just hope you don't have any body working in German or France.
We have similar data privacy laws here but if Works Council hears of this they will be in a lot on pain.

And, no a EULA or accepted usage policy does not get around this, there are some rights you can not just sign away.

tommycahir wrote: »

They are actually separate mailboxes and they business owner wants every single email for the domain able to be read by a superuser.

I have been looking at google apps and at setting up IMAP across all the PCs but the IMAP solution seems to say that there could be delays syncing the mail etc and I am not 100% sure if google apps will do what I am looking for.

BTW I am not going to get into the legality of this request and have told them to confirm with their company solicitor before implementing this if it will infringe on any employees rights.

tommycahir

There are no workers outside of Ireland for this company they are just a small Irish SME but I understand the concern as in my 9-5 job we have had to deal with the German workers council and held up some projects by months as a result. That is also why I advised them check the legal status anyway.

I am just looking for the technical solution for this company and am not 100% sure what is the best way to implement it. :S

SerialComplaint

If you want to give business advice, rather than just be a techy, tell him that this is a classic overreaction. He's probably found out that one person was looking for another job, or was leaking confidential information or whatever. He's looking for a technical solution to this by being able to search through emails. But there is no technical solution to this without getting into a totally different league of IT services.

Let's say you find a solution that allows him to search emails, then employees start using USB keys to copy info. So you lock down the USB ports (and kill staff productivity) and employees start using their gmail accounts. So you block email, and they find a different email provider. It's really a waste of time.

Blacknight might be able to help on a technical solution, but that's not a real solution. He needs to have clear IT policies in place, and strong line management.

druidhill

tommycahir wrote: »

There are no workers outside of Ireland for this company they are just a small Irish SME but I understand the concern as in my 9-5 job we have had to deal with the German workers council and held up some projects by months as a result.

If it's not your 9 - 5 job, I'd pass on it if it were me.

Ctrl Alt Del

The legality of having access to business emails by IT Dept and / or MD are nothing more than a fuss !
Once you "signed" the employment contract,that means your emails should be used only in dealing with business related tasks.If you use personal as well,is at your own risk,but nothing to complain if 'i' get access to it.Also,login username and passwords should be left with MD and / or IT Department.
If user not happy,move on...

Re archiving emails,is kind of BCC all send and received messages.
Basically,you need in-house solution to BCC /archive all send and received emails,at domain level.
If you have less than 5 users,you can get MDaemon ,is free registration and use for up to 5 users.It has an option to archive all messages send / received by the server.Easy to setup,with minimum downtime and time spent on ISP (keep same setup),no local server(can run on server or workstation platform) and on the local user Outlook' profile. More than 5,pay for the extra licenses.

Other option is Exchange,but expensive...

Regards.