Email tracking possible ?

[Amit Shanker]

Hi All,
I'm in a bit of soup with my new assignment. Well...I need to write a HTML snippet which will be sent as an HTML email. On opening of email, automatically a HTTP request should be triggered. The purpose is to keep a log of the number of times a mail item has been accessed by the user.
I tried a lot of options before giving up. One of them is using JavaScript onLoad in the body tag and then triggering a request. Another option was to use the <iframe> tag and the above purpose was acheived. APPLET could also be used.
The drawbacks of using the methods listed above are that these tags are renamed in yahoo mail & other web mail services (obviously for security purposes).
Could someone suggest a workaround ? I dunno if SSI tags could be used in anyway or even help. Help will be really appreciated.
Thanks & Regards,
Amit.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Whoever is making you do this kind of assignment needs to be kicked in the teeth. This is how Spammers get you on their mailing list. This way, when that request is triggered, your email is verified and you are placed on their list.
I would be very happy if no one helped you with this. Not because I want you to fail your assignment, but because this, to me, is the same as asking how to write a virus.
And you can tell your instructor I said so.

[Amit Shanker]

Thanks for you mail. Well..I was confident of receiving such a response Now I've confirmed that this really is an impossible task assigned :-) and I shall definitely forward your reply to the concerned person.
Thanks again for your reply.

[Michael Ernest]

If the assignment simply stated: 'The purpose of this exercise is to teach you how JavaScript can be used to promote spamming' I'd be less anxious about it.
The facilities in JavaScript, or any other language for that matter, should be seen as morally neutral. Whether those facilities are useful for actions that drive the the rest of us crazy is another matter.
The primary flaw I see is with the tool and the person who exploits it at our collective expense. Knowing or learning how that exploit is done is not the problem, only the willingness to use it without regard for others.

[Amit Shanker]

Well..I'm surprised. How have these people done it. Visit the site listed below. Any clue ?
http://www.readnotify.com

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Amit Shanker:
Well..I'm surprised. How have these people done it. Visit the site listed below. Any clue ?
http://www.readnotify.com

I don't know. What I do know, though, is that I would be very angry if someone used it on me.

[Thomas Paul]

One way spammers do it is to have an image encoded as a perl script with a parameter encoded that identifies the user. That is why outlook sucks since outlook automatically displays HTML email.

[Adrian Yan]

that's why i ran pine... hehehehe...
PS. this is one of the most "STUPID" assignment I have seem so far.
It's like your Operating System class professor asks you and your classmates to write a piece of software than consume all resource in lab class at the same time on school system just to show how easy it is to write crappy software!!!

[Thomas Paul]

readnotify doesn't work in all cases. It requires that you be connected to the internet when reading emails, for example. The only sure way to know if someone read your email would be to send a link to the recipient that they need to click on to see the actual email.

[Gregg Bolinger]

That is why outlook sucks since outlook automatically displays HTML email.
Oddly enough, Outlook 2003 does not display html by default. I have resorted to just using SquirrelMail with my IMAP server at home. So I don't have to run some clumsy email client on my PC.
I know, off topic. Sorry.