"Clark Murray" said in news:OJ%
[email protected]:
I'm not sure how this works technically. However, I know that if you
insert graphics into an HTML email in Outlook, Outlook keeps a copy
of the graphic to be referenced as a separate part of the message.
The problem I am running into is that this happens even when the
graphic is referenced as a link to a file on a server (as opposed to
being pasted into the document). So, for example, if I have a
statement in an HTML email like <img
src=
http://www.whatever.com/some.gif>, Outlook should not get that
image and insert a copy into the email that it sends. Is there any
way I can prevent Outlook from doing that?
I use SpamPal (which is free) to eliminate spam. It has an HTMLModify
plug-in that will remove linked images, if the option is enabled, from
messages. Linked images are what get used for web bugs since your computer
has to then connect back to the specified server to get the image, the
server obviously then knows your IP address (and the e-mail address, too, if
a unique image was used for that message), and then sends the image file to
you. HTMLModify will not remove embedded images since they are part of the
message and cannot be used for web bugs.
HTMLModify will also detect spam based on common exploits employed by
spammers in writing the HTML-formatted spam crap. I did have to disable one
of these spam checks in HTMLModify. It would check if an HTML-formatted
message contained both a plain-text section of the message besides the HTML
section for the message. Both should be included so those that use e-mail
clients that don't support HTML can still read the message in plain-text
mode. However, Hotmail is stupid in that it omits the plain-text section
for HTML-formatted messages, so everything coming from Hotmail got marked as
spam. I have some friends sending from Hotmail so I had to disable this
check in HTMLModify.
Note that you should configure your e-mail client to use the Restricted
Sites security zone, and the Restricted Sites security zone should be
configured at its default setup of High. This will eliminate scripts from
running when viewing an HTML-formatted e-mail. HTMLModify will also remove
scripts (and put placeholder tags for them) but you should primarily let the
Restricted Sites security zone do that.
Another feature of HTMLModify is that it will change the extension of "bad"
attachments. If someone sends you an .exe file, HTMLModify will change it
to .txt. That way you cannot accidentally run it (if you are foolish enough
to do so) and will have to rename back to .exe or remove the .txt appended
extension before you can run the file. So it doesn't matter if you have OE
configured to block unsafe attachments (I think .txt attachments are okay)
or end up with it blocked by Outlook because it has the extension of a
Level1 filetype.
Other plugins for SpamPal are: Bayesian filter (uses statistical weighting
of words in good and spam e-mails to determine likelihood that a message is
spam; simple word lists are worthless), URL plug-in (to detect spam when a
URL is included in the message to a known spam site), RegEx plug-in (to
provide regular expression for more complicated detection rules that you can
define), and others. SpamPal and all plug-ins are free.