h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes/No then:

Is the sender doing everything right?
Is the email leaving their machine encrypted?

It was subsequently discovered that it was not leaving their computer encrypted...

Was it leaving their email client encrypted?

No - this was a popular cloud-hosted e-mail service, accessed via a browser.

Was the decryption software working over the outbox, rather than (or as well as) the inbox?

So they were trying to send an encrypted email, but their computer was decrypting the email before it sent?


Geggs

So, they were using a cloud based email service, and it wasn't leaving that encrypted?

It was their expectation that this e-mail would be encrypted (as previous e-mails had been) yet, it clearly wasn't being encrypted.

Was there a browser update, or using a different browser?

Was the encryption key the same as the decryption key? So that if the encryption routine ran twice it would have the effect of decrypting the message?


Geggs

Did she try turning it off and back on again?

No not that.

Oh, I may have misled you again. I got this story second hand, and I'm thinking now that the sending operation may have been done via a native e-mail client which marked the e-mail as 'confidential' and then sent it via some portal to a cloud-based service.

Not that the solution is very technical...

Oddly, Baron Grim, power-cycling had no effect in this instance.

Was the sender using a non standard font?

No, there was nothing unusual about the message they sent. They had sent an identical one (effectively) an hour before which was correctly encrypted.

Did the security certificate run out?

You're almost there, Pastey. I'll let you have that one.

They disabled the security module because the girl's company hadn't paid their last invoice.

As well as encryption, it disabled spam filtering and archiving.

But they didn't tell anyone.

Icy

Didn't put the money in the meter

It's depressing how often that happens actually. Companies trying to save a little here and there by holding onto money and not paying their invoices until the very last minute

It was an 'administrative' cockup in this instance. They made the invoice-payer redundant before realising that they did perform rather an important job after all.

Cost cutting-me-own-throat then

Well done Pastey!

The group financial department of the company I w*rk for has ordered us not to pay invoices with a due date during the last few days of the month for 'money flow' reasons - I'm guessing it has something do to with interest.

Of course, they're not the ones ending up handling heaps of payment reminders and interest invoices from our Swedish suppliers