Is there a way to find out how someone got an email that shouldn't?

[Izulde]

A co-worker of a family member has been communicating with someone on an online dating site and has a hotmail account. But then, somehow, one of her e-mails corresponding with Personals Site Guy ended up going to Another Guy as well, even though she never entered the e-mail in.

Another Guy works for the same company and has been trying to date her without success and has exhibited stalker-ish tendencies. She did check her hotmail at work (which she admits was stupid to do). Another Guy is high up on the IT chain, so is it possible that he could have her email account shadowed and have gone into her hotmail account and set himself to auto-receive the emails she's sends or something?

She checked in the Sent folder and Another Guy's email was in the To line along with Personal Site Guy's email, so something odd is going on.

Also, is it possible that he is really Personals Site Guy?

Any thoughts?

(And yes, she's getting an entirely new email account, but she still wants to know how Another Guy got into her hotmail account.)

[Ksyrup]

One of the IT people can probably answer this, but as far as them being the same person...if that was the case, why would he need to send the email to his own email address, along with the PSG email address he already has? Once he's seen the email, he doesn't need it twice, right? At best, he would forward it from PSG email to AG email, leaving her off the trail entirely.

So I don't think this is one guy.

[molson]

Whenever I hear a story like that, I always assume that we probably don't know all the info - perhaps the "co-worker of the family member" isn't being completely honest.

[cartman]

I'm confused. Is, or is not, JimmyWint involved?

[Passacaglia]

I'm confused. Is, or is not, JimmyWint involved?

I think the problem is that both JimmyWint and Flasch are involved.

[jeff061]

Maybe logged in at work, stepped away from PC, someone swooped in. Or there is a key logger on her system. Or she's lying. Think that covers it.

[Toddzilla]

(1) Chicks always lie when they get caught doing something stupid - she probably sent the email to the stalker by accident

(2) Lonely desperate IT guys can and will read all of your email.

(3) Pixplskthx

[Farrah Whitworth-Rahn]

I think the problem is that both JimmyWint and Flasch are involved.

Which means a flere diagram can't be too far behind...

[Marc Vaughan]

(2) Lonely desperate IT guys can and will read all of your email.

My first thought was if he was that high in IT that he could easily place himself into a cc list or similar then he'd be high enough and careful enough to simply read the incoming/outgoing mail without her knowing rather than placing in large letters a sign saying "I'm creepy, be scared" ....

[Izulde]

If he was in fact reading it and able to access the hotmail account, would be there a way to prove that he was?

And thanks for the help and info guys. :) I know it's difficult from limited information, but it is helpful.

[Maple Leafs]

I can actually run a script right now that will answer this.

Hold on... will just take a second.

And... here we go. The answer is: she screwed up and entered his e-mail address by mistake.

Seriously man, Occam's Raisin.

[Maple Leafs]

Non-wiseass response:

The IT guy could probably easily mess with her work e-mail (assuming it's via Outlook or some other system he has access to), but Hotmail would be a different beast.

He could probably find a way to read her hotmail account if she was checking it from work (or at least, read the e-mails that she viewed from work, since the web pages would pass through the network and be cached). But even if he could, that doesn't give him access to modify or reroute them.

I can't picture a scenario where he would have the access level and know-how to do what you describe, but not be able to just read the e-mails at will (instead of forwarding them to himself).

[Doug5984]

Has she thought of testing it out- send emails from hotmail, careful to only type in 1 address, see where it goes? Send 1 email to the personal site go and see if it goes to that guy as well?

[Drake]

Has she thought of testing it out- send emails from hotmail, careful to only type in 1 address, see where it goes? Send 1 email to the personal site go and see if it goes to that guy as well?

I think we can all agree that this would be just a little bit too rational to be expected of a chick (unless said chick is terpkristen, of course).