KhanJr

Hi guys! I have a question. It's not about the security of my machine per se, but this section seems to be the most appropriate.

One e-mail address I use is on AOL webmail, a holdover from the bad old days when AOL was my ISP. *shudders* Anyway, one of the people I e-mail with unsent a couple of e-mails he sent me that I hadn't got a chance to look at yet, and sent me a weird message saying "Why haven't you read my e-mails? I know you haven't read them, I get notified when you do."

Looking around for more info, I found out there are services out there like DidTheyReadIt.com that do this and even show the geographic location of the reader from the IP address. Apparently they work by embedding an image into the message, then tell the sender when that image was accessed. I looked at the page source from one of his older messages and didn't see any obvious URL that might be from one of these services, though.

Anyway, is there a way I can stop DidTheyReadIt and similar services? I can see there are legitimate uses for them, but having someone instantly know where and when I read their e-mails creeps me out. I could block all images in Firefox before reading my mail. Will that work? Is there a better way to handle this?

Oh, and is there a way to keep e-mail that I've received (but not read) from being unsent? This isn't as important, but I'd still like to have control over my own inbox.

Thank you for reading! I appreciate any advice.

ejames82

welcome to TSF
i must admit, i don't quite understand what you're asking, but i'll take a shot in the dark.

you don't want people to know you opened the email they sent you, is that it?

i use outlook express, and this pertains to outlook express, but from what i've heard, email programmes have alot in common. you may be able to improvise this info to use on your programme. the first rule is to shut off preview pane.

tools>options>read
the only box to have checked is "read all messages in plain text"

for unreadable emails;
mark messages read after displaying for 5 seconds
automatically download message when viewing in the preview pane
show tooltips in the message list for clipped items

uncheck "read all messages in plain text"


when checking suspicious email have "read all messages in plain text" as the only box checked.
right click suspicious email
click properties>details>message source>maximize
this way, you're not "opening" the email, thus not "giving away" that it's a valid email address.

sobeit

just change the received email setting from html to text.

Tell the person that you receive your emails in text format for security purposes and that all embedded scripts and gifs are disabled to prevent nasties from entering your system via emails. That is why it is perceived you are not reading your emails.