Re: HTML email "bug", of sorts.

[Jon Masters <jonathan () jonmasters org>]

On 18 Aug 2001 06:17:25 -0400, Alex Prestin wrote:

> I'm not sure this is the proper forum for "conspiracy-theory" bugs

It's not conspiracy, merely exploitation of badly designed MUAs.
Consider for a moment whether the "spammer" is really the faulty party
here - they're merely taking advantage of your HTML mail client.

Besides, everyone knows HTML mail is evil anyway :)

> <img
> src="http://www.megahardcoresex.com/sites/XXXXXXXX0 (continued)
> 3b/sf03b08152001.gif?M=XXXXXXXXX&ID=wakko () bitey net" width="1" height="1"> 
>
> See it?  A web bug.  If I opened this mail in an HTML-capable browser,
> that little image would've popped up and I would've been none the
> wiser.

That's not true. Had you opened that mail with a dumb HTML-capable mail
client then you would probably have just verified your address with the
spammer. However there are clients which will not display images unless
you issue an instruction for that to occur (I'm playing with evolution,
it is one such client however there are others) and then there are
non-HTML clients which don't have this problem at all.

In short, there are plenty of alternatives around so if you don't like
this behaviour, change your mail client or look for image settings you
can alter.

> So, anyone have any idea of how to deal with this latest little spammer
> toy?

I've seen these appearing for a while now but I mostly ignore them on
the grounds that I don't load their little "web bugs" (can someone
please invent a better term?) and they can readily obtain a valid
address for me anyway.

--jcm