On 19 Aug 99, at 15:16, Trudy & Paul Schuett wrote:

> Here's a question for the great minds out there--(actually two
> questions)
> Now I know most (if not all) of those  many-times fwd'ed msgs, like free
> trips to Disneyland or free 'puters for sending your copy to 100 people,
> etc, are hoaxes.now,

  Almost any message that urges you, explicitly or implicitly, to forward it
to everyone you know can pretty much be assumed to be a hoax.

> do they (1) serve any purpose for anybody?

  I've sometimes wondered if some of the free trip/etc ones, that ask you not
only to forward the message but also to send a copy to somewhere, aren't
really attempts to get you and your friends to "mail bomb" some target.  I
can sort of see where somebody might think they want to do that to Disney or
Microsoft, but I can't imagine what anyone would have against the American
Cancer Society....

> (2) is there such a thing as an 'e-mail tracking device'?
> I can't think of any way I'd find out who got a msg, and who they, in
> turn, sent it to.

  It would be possible to build something like this using techniques like the
Melissa virus, but that still depends a little bit on some collaboration from
the recipient.  Internet email supports message flags requesting a "receipt"
message back when a message is read (and possibly when delivered), but in
many cases recipients can suppress honouring of those requests -- and, in any
case, those wouldn't get back to you from messages forwarded by your own
correspondents.
  [I've just recently seen some mention of a service that would let you
"cancel" sent emails.  I think, though, that this probably entails using
their server and tolerating some delay; I don't believe there is any way that
it can hunt across the net looking for copies of your message....]


David G

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