Inserting Pictures in E-Mail Via Proxy Servers

That's the question whose answer I decided to go for, late on a springlike night in mid-March.

I've sent text using proxy servers, but never could get pictures to work, and never knew exactly why. The deeper I dig into the Internet, the more I realize that there are so many things to learn, so little time, and everything keeps changing.

The future being now, the place to start was Google, search term "proxy servers Java script."

Java script is code that web developers use to create web pages. It allows them to position graphics and banners, add pictures, and change fonts. On old browsers that can't read the newest Java, Web pages load as lines of text in your browser's default font, pictures are broken, and graphics and functionality are limited.

Java also identifies the user to a site's administrators. Proxy servers, whose purpose is anonymity, remove all Java scripts. Proxy home pages have boxes labeled "enable scripts," "enable Java," "remove scripts," that can be checked or unchecked. Never have they worked at my end, with Java enabled in Internet Options on both browsers -- IE8 and Firefox 3.6 -- as the proxies recommend.

Without Java, GMail won't load in Standard View mode. Absent are the rich text editor and all options including Labs where the Insert Image beta feature can be selected. The only choice is Basic HTML, and anyone familiar with GMail knows, with one glance at the Compose page, that something's missing. You can send text, but that's it.

Without Java, the drag and drop option for images on Yahoo Mail doesn't work. In the Compose window, in place of the pic, appears the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) used to place the pic on its host web site.

No Java means you can't even log into Mail.com.

On computer forums, I saw old lists of proxy servers that allow Java. They may have been running 18 months ago, but all were gone. They were small proxies of the kind hosted on unused space on college, university, or commercial servers. When the server owners need the resources, the proxies get booted. The biggies, like bypasstheweb.com, have dedicated servers and stick around. Small proxies come and go, and 18 months ago on the Internet is ancient history.

And - speaking of small proxy servers - very, very few of them are likely to offer encryption. Meaning that what you type into an email Compose window, for example, is converted into code that's decoded by the receiver. There's always the chance that someone with systems administrator access to the proxy server can read everything you write. To be safe, never order merchandise or type any personal information while on any proxy server.

Past page 20 on Google, there were more links to individual proxy servers whose owners assured the visitor that their sites could read CGI. One of them, I thought (hoped), might open the door to the truly anonymous e-mailing of images.

All proxies read PHP, I learned, but not many read CGI.

PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) is a simple script language that allows users to read text on web sites, and click on links. Without it, there couldn't be a web site. CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is more complex, and allows a web site's server to process information entered in a form, or log-in and password fields.

The proxies that do read CGI don't always read all of it. That's why I could sign up for a new GMail account via proxy, but couldn't log into it on the same server.

One proxy offered CGI-enabled premium (pay) access for anyone who still wanted to fill out forms with no guarantee of encryption. (Yes; I'm going to type in my credit card number, and who knows what other personal info they'll ask for, so I can surf the web anonymously.)

At that point, I had to take a break. Just when you thought you'd seen every dumb gimmick there is ...

After almost three hours, it was time to log off.

I did see bunches of popups - some that talked to me, others whose windows I couldn't close or back out of -- won prizes I never claimed, and was the one millionth visitor to more than one web site. I considered myself lucky to have returned from the hunt without any viruses or browser hijack meanies on my system, still believing in the Internet as a tool that can benefit mankind.

The answer to the question "can an e-mail with an image in it be send via a proxy server?" is a definite NO. You can try until the sun comes up, and it won't happen. If you want to be anonymous, you'll have to do it without pictures. Send the thousand words instead. Go here and find a stable proxy that will do it and be quick about it.

That doesn't mean pics on proxies will never happen. Next spring, sending them might be as easy as saving YouTube videos.

Was the time wasted? No way.

And that's the thought you hold, over a cup of tea and some chill-out music in the wee small hours of the morning, while you reflect on the night's accomplishments. Fellow Port Huron-ite Thomas Edison, when asked if he felt bad after dozens of substances failed as filaments in what would become the electric light bulb, said: of course not. There's that many more things that we know won't work.