[Coco] OT: Self-modifying email??!!

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 12 October 2013 04:21:53 Aaron Wolfe did opine:

> An HTML email message can use image tags that display images from any
> web server anywhere.  The message content on residing in your inbox is
> not being changed, instead the image that the message points to is
> being changed.
> 
Which is just one of the reasons my kmail is set for plain text, and takes 
about 4 mouse clicks to display an html encoded message.  Depending on 
where it comes from, most html only mail goes straight drag-n-drop into the 
spam training folder, unread.

> On Oct 11, 2013 11:31 PM, "Arthur Flexser" <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
> > I'm hoping somebody on the list can figure out what is going on here.
> > 
> > A few days ago I received a coupon from Chevy's restaurants, a welcome
> > for joining their email discount club.  The coupon was in the body of
> > the email itself, and did not require clicking on a link;   you just
> > had to print out the email.
> > 
> > I opened it a few times in the next few days, but did not get around
> > to attempting to print it until about 10 days after first receiving
> > it.  When I opened the message on that occasion, it appeared different
> > in an important respect:  The coupon was overlaid with an exclamation
> > point surrounded by a triangular border, beneath which was the
> > following text:  "Sorry.  This offer has been viewed too many times".
> > 
> > Aside from the question of why the restaurant would choose to cause
> > such an overlay message (the coupon still had weeks left until it was
> > due to expire), I'm puzzled by HOW they were able to accomplish the
> > trick while the message was sitting passively in my Inbox folder.
> > 
> > To make things more puzzling, the overlay disappeared a couple of days
> > later, after I complained to Chevy's and they replaced the coupon with
> > an additional similar email.  It disappeared not only on my copy of
> > the original mailing, but also on another copy of that original that I
> > had forwarded to someone.  That person saw the same thing I did:  the
> > overlay was visible when he first looked at my forwarded message, but
> > was no longer visible when he looked for it later after I asked if he
> > could still see it.
> > 
> > If anyone would like to have a look at this unusual message and
> > perhaps poke into its html code to see how this trick was
> > accomplished, please let me know and I'll forward you a copy.
> > 
> > I wouldn't have thought it possible for the sender of a message to
> > affect its content after it had been received by the recipient.  It
> > seems rather invasive, somewhat like the sender of a postal letter
> > stealing it back from my mailbox temporarily in order to modify its
> > content.
> > 
> > Art
> > 
> > --
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> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> 
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Cheers, Gene
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