* Rob Reid ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote this on 10 05, 02 at 22:35: 
> Danger, Will Robinson! ;-)
> 
> At  8:21 AM EDT on October  5 Viktor Lakics sent off:
> > I have a crazy idea, I wanted to ask you about: Has anyone ever
> > tried to work out how to autoview graphics inside mutt? 
> 
> You might know this already, but a common spammer tactic is to include images
> in their html mails like <img
> src="http://spam.server.com/Viktor_actually_read_this_spam.gif";> that let
> them know that you actually read their spam, *if* you read the message in a
> graphical browser.  From then on you can count on that address receiving the
> GSSSP (Gross Solar System Spam Product).

Most times, yes. But the majority of people actually don't use console based
mailers, but graphical ones. And the graphical ones usually show the HTML
directly, that is, they don't spawn a browser. Think of Outlook or Eudora. 

On Linux, at least, some graphical mailers - for example, Evolution - can be
configured not to get images in HTML email at all, or only if the sender is
in the address book.

This is probably a more pervasive problem on Windows than Linux.

> Yes, I know there are countermeasures like proxies, defangers, and filtering
> spam away first, but I thought everyone should know that this path is
> perilous. 

More annoying are the 1x1 pixel images that you can't even see, that do the
same thing. I believe the term is "web bug".

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