Re: Email confirmation...

[Phil Pennock <phil@globnix.org>]

Typing away merrily, Jerzy Miszczyk produced the immortal words:
> Is there a program or a script which sends a info to the sender that the email was successfully downloaded from the server by the receiver?

Not directly.  Email works with co-operating systems using a given
protocol.  The base protocol doesn't allow for that.

Options:
 (1) Work with the protocol.  Use DSN - Delivery Status Notification -
     which relies upon the mail client at the far side honouring it, or
     perhaps a POP3 server could send the notification.  I'm not
     familiar enough with it.
 (2) I'll stress that I'm not personally familiar with this option
     either.  However ... if the remote person is using Windows or a
     web-browser to read their mail (relatively likely) then unless
     they've been keeping up to date on security patches, there will be
     ways to embed JavaScript in the mail.

Either way, you're not going to really succeed in promoting this.  The
only realistic option is if you can control the choice of software used
by the recipient, in which case you're probably the sysadmin (or
interfering manager ;^) in an organisation and installing, eg, Lotus
Notes or other 'group' software.  If you control the mail servers used
by the sender and recipient, then I _think_ you can enable DSN receipts
from there.  I'm not sure.

The general Internet doesn't really use DSN and isn't likely to take it
up in large numbers - many regard it as an invasion of privacy.

mutt(1) can support use of DSN, but it's not enabled by default.

See also RFC 1894.
-- 
HTML email - just say no --> Phil Pennock
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