HTML is only a text file, its the internet program that makes it "live" so Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Outlook, MS Word, Excel, and other programs that recognize HTML source code will make it "live" and do what the code says. If you open an HTML in notepad, the code will not become "live" and phone home.
Zone Alarm is REALLY nice about this. When a program tries to access the internet, it will ask if you should let it thru. When Outlook tries to receive email, Zone Alarm asks if outlook (fetching email) can access the internet. When the email comes in and the HTML code is recognized, Zone Alarm comes up with a 2nd request (the other part of outlook trying to access the internet) to allow outlook to the internet and to that 2nd request I say NO! I now get HTML emails where all you see is partial pages cause the email can not phone home and get the rest. This does NOT protect you from a script that has all of the evil code needed to infect your system. If you use Outlook or Express and have the "view pane" open, you can get the nasty virus just by highlighting the email as the view pane will try to run the HTML code. The Bat making html code an attachment is not vulnerable to this (until you open the html in your web browser) Since The Bat nicely shows html as an attachment that I never will read, if I am interested, I whammy on F9 and view it as html code to see "whats the big deal". Sorry, this old time computer user is not impressed with 15 point bold color fonts in emails... There was more answer than I am sure you bargained for... Scott Thursday, April 3, 2003, 10:41:15 AM, you wrote: > If an HTML-formatted message is received which (a) seeks to phone home > in order to receive a web bug, (b) is not viewed as HTML, i.e., is > viewed as text if present, and (c) is viewed in an application that is > not restricted in any manner from Internet access, including to port > 80, would the code be received from the remote source? ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.62 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
