Emailing comment with incorrect system time affects the comment date in Launchpad too

[Nathan Teodosio]

Reproduction case:

1. Set system time to 2 h earlier than actual.

2. Respond to this bug via the Launchpad interface (comment A).

3. Respond to this bug via email (comment B).

Expected: comment A is logged before comment B in the bug report.

Observed: Comment B is logged before comment A in the bug report, and with the false timestamp.

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

This is comment B sent via email at 11:50 (but with the system time set
to 09:50).

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

This is comment A, sent via Launchpad interface at 11:49.

[robert blodgett (robert2001b)]

Yes, the system time can indeed affect the timestamp of an email. When you send an email, the timestamp is typically set by the program that creates it, which usually uses the system’s date, time, and time zone settings.

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

That however shouldn't allow one to tamper with the timestamps that the Launchpad displays.

Besides the absurdity to be witnessed in this very bug report, namely that the first comment is logged at a time before the creation of the bug report, a malicious user could create a lot of confusion in any bug report by inserting contextually reasonable comments at any given point of the thread.

The timestamp should be the time at which the email reached Launchpad.