Tracking emails.. true story

[DNQuest.com]

I the past year or so, I have always responded to the comments "just delete the email, no once can prove you got it" or something along those lines. My reply has always been "Emails can be tracked". Well, if you want a real life story, here it goes....

I was in court last week for a divorce. One of the problems is my estanged wife would always deny receiving emails and she would always send emails to her boyfriend. In court under cross examination, she denied receiving the emails, she strongly denied sending the emails to her boyfriend. I was able to present and have admitted into evidence the receipts of the emails I tracked showing when and where and what IP address used when she read the emails, also, it showed when they were forwarded to her boyfriend which tracked the same information previously stated.

Though her lawyer vehemently tried to challenge and refuse the admittance of the receipts, the judge overruled him stating that it was entered into evidence because of direct statements made by my wife and were not subjected to rules of discovery becuase they were only brought up to refute the wife's direct testimony.

Needless to say, I was able to discredit her pretty badly in court time after time and the tracked emails worked in my favor.

Now here is a funny story, I sent her an email this past Saturday, on Monday, she denied receiving the email, I sent her the receipt showing her reading it on Saturday... I laughed at her... she didn't respond back.

In conclusion, emails can be tracked, so don't think by just deleting them will get you off the hook.

 

[Kate]

Are you talking about the read receipts that can be sent back by the E-mail client automatically ?
I turn them off by default, perhaps some people are using programs like outlook where this option would be enabled by default and they would be unaware.

 

[c0demonger]

every mail server keeps track of the messages it passes to its users, for instance if you look at the headers of any message you receive, you will see "received by" followed by a unique number in that mailserver.

so if you want to track emails, you can just use the headers.

 

[DeluxeNames.com]

I'm so sorry to hear about the divorce and the crazy way that divorce makes people who were once so in love into bitter enemies.

I'm glad you were able to track the emails though. There is a tiny bit of justice left in this world.

 

[deu12000]

There's the read receipt, also a tool spammers use is images. I'm not sure exactly how they track email addresses with images, but I know it's done, I guess it's by looking at referrers or something or maybe a unique code attached to each image.

 

[labrocca]

He is using a special tool and if you look out for it you can easily avoid it. You can just read the email in Unix.

If I was getting divorced or had some legal battle I wouldn't be downloading anything before first checking the box in Unix to make sure it's not something damaging.

 

[ApeXX]

I didn't know that, thanks for the information. Not like I would have a reason to delete any of my emails...

 

[primacomputer]

Using an email client that doesn't support receipts or HTML solves all these problems.

 

[RJ]

Emails can be tracked through images too. Anytime it loads an image from a remote server, it leaves an identifying trace with that server that can let them know that the email has been read.

 

[maximum]

Example for those curious

Philip: Sorry to hear about divorce. But even the most intent on making it work sometimes fail. To quote Socrates "By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."

Emails can be tracked through images too. Anytime it loads an image from a remote server, it leaves an identifying trace with that server that can let them know that the email has been read.

The following is an example, if you were unaware of this concept. Follow the instructions in order:

#1) Go to http://www.nonpublicserver.com/np/MailReciept/reciept.php . You will see that it says you have not read the message. No matter how many times you go to the URL, or hit browser's "refresh" button, it will say this.
#2) Send an email to [email protected]. The subject or content of the email do not matter. It is a bot, so no human reads them anyway
#3) Wait a few moments, as your email service may be slow as a snail. The bot itself, answers in less than a second, but the outgoing and returning from your email service may be lagging. I suggest Gmail for fast speed free email :imho:
#4) Do NOT open the reply you get (will have subject of "Auto-Reply") right away! As soon as you notice it in your inbox, go to that link again (http://www.nonpublicserver.com/np/MailReciept/reciept.php). You'll notice it still says you have not opened the email. The idea behind having you check this time is to show that the page doesn't just change becuase you mailed the bot in the first place (ie: IP#, ect.) :blink:
#5) Now you can open the email. If your email ask you rather to display images from the sender, you need to click "yes" (or equivalent) for this to work. Once you have opened the email (and included image..is 1x1 pixel, so you won't actually see it...How most spammers use this trick), you have been caught opening the email. You can not tell our lawyers you didn't :hehe:
#6) Go back to that page (http://www.nonpublicserver.com/np/MailReciept/reciept.php). It will now tell you that you infact have opened the bot's reply email Your ISP, hostname, time/date opened, ect. All in a nice package

Don't worry, I actually don't record these, I just set this up as a test to show those unfamiliar with the concept. The image just records IP#'s, and puts them into a list, that that link reads from; telling it rather you (or your email in this case) have accessed that image.

How do you defeat this type tracking?

Using an email client that doesn't support receipts or HTML solves all these problems.

Exactly like primacomputer said. Use a mail reader or service that either blocks HTML, or at minimum (like Gmail does) blocks images untill you tell it otherwise from a particular sender :tu:

 

[spacetrain]

This method is also used to track how many people read a newsletter, roughly as not everyone enables images.

 

[Peter]

Exactly like primacomputer said. Use a mail reader or service that either blocks HTML, or at minimum (like Gmail does) blocks images untill you tell it otherwise from a particular sender :tu:

outlook express blocks images by default now.

 

[DomainSage]

'Using an email client that doesn't support receipts or HTML solves all these problems.'

Sorry that's not quite right, you need a system that once it recieves a mesage sends back one to the effect that the mailbox is not known. There are many ways a spammer will validate your e-mail address :

1) If you click on any link in their e-mail ... usually the one that claims to un-subscribe you.

2) If you are using a mail reader that opens up a graphic ( or embedded link ).

3) If they do not recieve a return from the server that declairs the mailbox as not active.

4) Even if they do receive a return as above, it confirms the domain is active.

Several others I'll keep quiet in case potential spammers are here

Best way is for all of us to find any local spammers ... take them out the back .. and beat seven kinds of ( won't put that word in here out of them.

All the best.

Richard

 

[maximum]

Best way is for all of us to find any local spammers ... take them out the back .. and beat seven kinds of ( won't put that word in here ) out of them.

I normally don't condone violence in any form, but for spammers...I like the idea :bingo:

Problem with your approach to sending back unknown-address responce (or any failed-message responce, for that matter), is that you may later miss mails you really wanted becuase the sender's mail server or ISP assumes it will not get though to begin with (for servers that cache these for future refferance). But, adding that tip to folks about un-suscribe links, is a great tip. Unscribing-links one of the spammers favorite ways to get newbies. They know email is not only valid, but read (ie: What you think is un-subscribing is really telling them "Yep, this is a valid email that is read, so give it to all our spam buddies." )

 

[DomainSage]

Hi muximum,

Yep, I do have to agree with you about the returns ... It is getting late here in the UK and the JD has had a bit of a hit

I have mainly focused on the servers that are sending Spam, your normal ones ( like AOL / Hotmail etc ) should just be discarded as the chances are that they would have abandoned even before you get the chance to respond.

If there was an easy way then it would have already been implemented

Spam blocking is really a balance, the more you reject then the more chance you will miss something that should have got through .... If you HAVE to receive all your real e-mails then you have to accept a certain ammount of spam.

All the best.

Richard

 

[maximum]

Richard,

Yep, got to take the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The trick is in not being ugly back, as tempting as it sometimes is to use their own game against them :notme: :lol:

 

[DNQuest.com]

All I know is loving the expression of the wife's face when she emphaticly said no to reading and forwarding emails and the judge allowing the receipts after I showed she lied...

I do have SPAM assasson and I use text only and use HTML... they all get tracked. And this only applies to emails that are opened, if the email is not open, there is no info (cause it only tracks opened emails).

Anyway, the next time you think an email can't be racked... it can.

 

[Dave_Z]

If Tsutomu Shimomura was able to eventually track down Kevin Mitnick, then
I don't see how emails can't be tracked down either. It's just a matter of being
able to figure out a way, and how soon to accomplish it.

Philip/DNQuest, thanks for sharing your story. I hope your case will be resolved
quickly so you can move on and enjoy life even more.

 

[bluesman]

Let's see, what would I do if I was the judge in a case where some gal swore on the Bible that she'd tell me the "whole truth and nothing but the truth," yet it was proven by evidence beyond any doubt that instead she'd L-I-E-D to me time and time again?

I'd make sure she never got a dime!

BAM!
Next case!

 

[maximum]

Let's see, what would I do if I was the judge in a case where some gal swore on the Bible that she'd tell me the "whole truth and nothing but the truth," yet it was proven by evidence beyond any doubt that instead she'd L-I-E-D to me time and time again?

I'd make sure she never got a dime!

BAM!
Next case!

You'd actually hope that that happened in a case where she made good money, and that the husband had a smart lawyer. You'd go from a case of him trying to break even and her trying to take him for more (alimony, ect. - more than 50/50), to a case where he got atleast half + she ended-up making monthly payments to him on top of that for awhile. Next guy she married, then decided to divorce, she wouldn't lie on or about, considering it might cost her alimony or property for her deception :yell: