[ale] Spam and HTML email

[James P. Kinney III]

In short, do not disable this feature. It may annoy the users but it
prevents problems later. Windows has lulled so many people to sleep
about basic information integrity, not to mention security, that people
just don't realize the exposure they have by reading their email with
out thinking.

I prefer to put all of my clients on an email client (Mozilla) that does
not come from Microsoft and turn off java, javascript and remote images
in mail and news. When they complain, I show them the source code for an
image link and explain what it is doing. If they still complain, I add
further explanation that includes my hourly rate and how long it takes
to clean up a virus mess. That also includes the "how to view the image
anyway" speech and how hard it gets to schedule time for emergency
visits, etc.

:)

On Mon, 2004-01-05 at 10:17, Matthew Brown wrote:
> Here's a good question for you sharp shooters...
>  
> I have a mail server set up to DEFANG active HTML.  This basically
> disables all links to web content within the email, so images that are
> linked from a web URL rather than embedded in the email itself are
> essentially dead.  The typical bad URL graphics show up in the email
> rather than the image itself.  The good thing here is that it prevents
> a well-known spam technique, which is to track the valid recipients of
> an email by tracking which images are loaded -- an easy thing for an
> experienced crew of ne'er-do-wells.
>  
> Here's the question: Should I disable this feature?  It is really
> annoying to my employees to receive email like this, but on the other
> hand it helps us to be more hidden to spammers.
>  
> Best Regards,
>  
> Matthew Brown
> (770) 795-0089
> matthew.brown at cordata.com
> 
> [image]
> 
>       (888) 681-2262     ?    
> (770) 795-0089     ?    
> http://www.cordata.com
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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