Hi all,
I was aware of the old technique of including a small hosted image in a message, thereby confirming the exact date and time a message has been opened and displayed by simply recording the time it was requested.
I've just found out about more dirty tricks though (eg, readnotify.com) which offers services such as time-bomb emails which self-delete at a preset time, messages which self-delete if you try to copy or print them, and tracking information which includes the following:
Date and time opened
Location of recipient (per their ISP city /town)
Map of location (available on paid subscriptions)
Recipients IP address
Apparent email address of opening (if available)
Referrer details (ie; if accessed via web mail etc)
URL clicks
How long the email was read for
How many times your email was opened
If your email was forwarded, or opened on a different computer
More information at: http://www.readnotify.com/readnotify/faq.asp.
My question is, how much of this can we block?!
Obviously if we use Pocomail we will defeat anything that relies on client-side scripting, and if we block all images we will defeat the simple served-image thing, but is it possible for email to do things while on the server (like delete itself, or report back-to-base)?
I always thought that email was essentially a one-way system, but after reading some of the stuff on that site I'm a bit confused.
It doesn't really explain how it works, so I was hoping someone here could enlighten me?!
Cheers!