Email anonymization w/PHP?

[extrapolation]

Hi,

I'm working with a client and developing a PHP/MySQL user-driven site. He wants users to have the ability to get their email address anonymized automatically (no prob so far), but he also wants them to have the ability to send to each others' anonymized emails using mailto: links, and get them relayed to the real emails (i.e., so they can email directly to those addresses through their own client). Anyone done anything like this? Can it be done using PHP? Any help is hugely appreciated; I'll lose this client if I can't pull this off, as it's a very important feature for the site.

[kenrbnsn]

The only way you will be able to accomplish this is if all of the anonymized email addresses point to your system. You need to write a php script that will be started whenever email arrives on the system. This script would parse the headers and get the To: address. It would then check to see if that address is a known anonymized address. If it is an anonymized address, it would replace it with the real address and send it on it's way, if not, the script would just send the message on.

Ken

[extrapolation]

All of that makes sense to me, except for the "script that runs when email arrives on your system" part. How does PHP detect when email has arrived? Sending it is simple, but how can I receive/detect email through PHP?

[extrapolation]

Sorry, but I could really use some help here. It was either bump, or start a whole new thread.

[michaellunsford]

I needed to send email to php a while back... here's the thread

[a href=\"http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=84272&pid=340043&st=0&#entry340043\" target=\"_blank\"]http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php?...=0&#entry340043[/a]