Start here:
http://www.fjsmjs.com/IE/redx.htm
Also:
Tools>Options>Security>Download images... (uncheck)
and/or
Tools>Options>Read>Read all messages in plain text (uncheck)
See
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2email.mspx
Outlook Express now has picture handling facilities similar to Outlook 2003.
This prevents senders of spam e-mail from determining whether a recipient
opens a message. It does this by preventing the automatic display of
pictures from Internet servers. The user is presented with place holders and
the Information Bar gives the user the option to display the picture.
[[Pictures and images embedded in HTML e-mail messages can be adapted to
secretly send a message back to the sender. These are often referred to as
Web beacons. Spammers rely on information returned by these images to
confirm active e-mail addresses. Some spam messages contain Web beacon
images so small that they are invisible to the human eye—but not to Outlook
Express.
An improved defense against Web beacons is to stop pictures from downloading
until you've had a chance to review the message. Outlook Express in Windows
XP SP2 will now block images automatically in messages from people who are
not in your address book. This goes a long way in preventing the
verification of your e-mail address for spammers. It makes your e-mail name
less useful to spammers and may result in your getting less spam over time.
This feature also minimizes a common annoyance for those using dial-up
network connections. In earlier versions of Outlook Express, if you read an
HTML e-mail message with a picture embedded in it, Outlook Express would
automatically try to connect to the Internet to retrieve any reference
images. With image blocking in Outlook Express, this will no longer happen.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/ieoeoverview.mspx]]
Plain text mode is now the default setting with Outlook Express in Windows
XP Service Pack 2. In plain text mode, Outlook Express uses the rich edit
control rather than the MSHTML control. This avoids some security issues
that result from the use of MSHTML by using the rich edit control. You can
reduce the attack surface by operating in Plain Text Mode.
The following Outlook Express features are not available when running in
Plain Text mode:
- Changing text size
- Full text searching through the body of a mail message
--
OE-specific newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
