spam as html

[bob]

I noticed that all the spam I get is in the form of HTML.
I'd like to turn off HTML and view all emails as pure text
and this way I could also setup my filter to recognize
HTML tags and I'd be able to better filter out all the
spam.

Anyone know if there is an option to change incoming email
formats to text only?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

There is an option for this in Outlook 2003; Tools-> Options-> tab
Preferences-> button E-mail Options-> Read all standard mail in Plain Text.
This will remove the HTML tags though.

On what tags are you planning to filter?

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[Bob]

Sorry I didn't specify...this is for Outlook 2000. Is
there any way of doing this in outlook 2000?

If not would there be a problem upgrading to outlook 2003
on windows 2000?

Well if tags are removed that's ok as the spam I receive
has tags between letters in each word so if tags are
removed I can still filter on the resulting words.

Thanks.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

No, this doesn't work for Outlook 2000. You can use Outlook 2003 on Windows
2000 SP3 and above. Outlook 2003 also has a spam-filter and blocks pictures
from the Internet so spammers can't find out whether your address is alive
by picture tracking

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[*Vanguard*]

"Bob" said in news:[email protected]:

Sorry I didn't specify...this is for Outlook 2000. Is
there any way of doing this in outlook 2000?

<snip>

I have AttachmentOptions installed to let me handle what filetypes get blocked by Outlook as too hazardous for poor lil me as some moron user. Got it from a link at http://www.slipstick.com/. It also has an option to read e-mail in text-only format. This changes a registry value. This product works on OL2002 SP-1 and later. So it doesn't help you ... yet.

I switched this option to enabled and checked what changed in the registry (using InstallWatch). It changed the following data value:

Key = HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
Data Item = READASPLAIN
Data Value = Changed from dword:00000000 to dword:00000001

I have Outlook 2002 and hence the "10.0" in the registry key path. For Outlook 2002, I suspect it would be "9.0". You can read Microsoft's KB article at:

OL2002: Users Can Read Nonsecure E-mail as Plain Text
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307594

However, this may be a new registry data item that only OL2002 and later will read. If Outlook 2000 doesn't use this value, putting it into the registry won't change its behavior. At worst, this data item won't be read. At best, it might get used.
<snip>

From what I've read and heard from mail admins, most spam is no longer in HTML format because that ups the threshold in detecting their message as spam. Some are stupid in omitting an alternative/text MIME part (so the message can be displayed in a non-MIME e-mail client) which often significantly biases that e-mail much higher to approach the spam-detect threshold. I use SpamPal's HTML-Modify plug-in in determining if an HTML-formatted message is likely to be spam, and it also will strip out "bad" content, like linked images (used for webbugs) but leave embedded images. One of its detection parameters was to check for the lack of alternate/text MIME part in HTML-formatted e-mails. Unfortunately, all e-mails originating from Hotmail (using its webmail interface) lack this MIME part, so I had to disable this detection of what is otherwise typically a spammer trick.

If you strip out the HTML tags, you could be throwing away some of the spam content. Lots of spam will try to hide inside invalid HTML tags. Since it is not a valid tag, it displays to the user. So either you won't detect it is spam from the remaining non-tag portion of the e-mail's body (so you could block it getting to the recipient) or the recipient gets something resembling a censored letter with cutouts if you strip out what they receive.

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[Roady [MVP]]

This doesn't work fo Outlook 2000. It works for Outlook 2002 SP1 and above
only

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-----
"Bob" said in news:[email protected]:

Sorry I didn't specify...this is for Outlook 2000. Is
there any way of doing this in outlook 2000?

<snip>

I have AttachmentOptions installed to let me handle what filetypes get
blocked by Outlook as too hazardous for poor lil me as some moron user. Got
it from a link at http://www.slipstick.com/. It also has an option to read
e-mail in text-only format. This changes a registry value. This product
works on OL2002 SP-1 and later. So it doesn't help you ... yet.

I switched this option to enabled and checked what changed in the registry
(using InstallWatch). It changed the following data value:

Key = HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
Data Item = READASPLAIN
Data Value = Changed from dword:00000000 to dword:00000001

I have Outlook 2002 and hence the "10.0" in the registry key path. For
Outlook 2002, I suspect it would be "9.0". You can read Microsoft's KB
article at:

OL2002: Users Can Read Nonsecure E-mail as Plain Text
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307594

However, this may be a new registry data item that only OL2002 and later
will read. If Outlook 2000 doesn't use this value, putting it into the
registry won't change its behavior. At worst, this data item won't be read.
At best, it might get used.
<snip>

From what I've read and heard from mail admins, most spam is no longer in
HTML format because that ups the threshold in detecting their message as
spam. Some are stupid in omitting an alternative/text MIME part (so the
message can be displayed in a non-MIME e-mail client) which often
significantly biases that e-mail much higher to approach the spam-detect
threshold. I use SpamPal's HTML-Modify plug-in in determining if an
HTML-formatted message is likely to be spam, and it also will strip out
"bad" content, like linked images (used for webbugs) but leave embedded
images. One of its detection parameters was to check for the lack of
alternate/text MIME part in HTML-formatted e-mails. Unfortunately, all
e-mails originating from Hotmail (using its webmail interface) lack this
MIME part, so I had to disable this detection of what is otherwise typically
a spammer trick.

If you strip out the HTML tags, you could be throwing away some of the spam
content. Lots of spam will try to hide inside invalid HTML tags. Since it
is not a valid tag, it displays to the user. So either you won't detect it
is spam from the remaining non-tag portion of the e-mail's body (so you
could block it getting to the recipient) or the recipient gets something
resembling a censored letter with cutouts if you strip out what they
receive.

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[*Vanguard*]

"Roady [MVP]" said in news:u6Iz%[email protected]:

This doesn't work fo Outlook 2000. It works for Outlook 2002 SP1 and
above only

I wasn't sure. When a feature is undocumented, it is also undocumented at what version it became an undocumented feature. Oh well, guess bob will have to use something like SpamPal with its HTML-Modify plug-in that can strip out the nasties from HTML.

 

[Brian Tillman]

However, this may be a new registry data item that only OL2002 and
later will read.

OL2000 won't read that registry key.

If you strip out the HTML tags, you could be throwing away some of
the spam content. Lots of spam will try to hide inside invalid HTML
tags. Since it is not a valid tag, it displays to the user.

Um, no. HTML interpreters toss unknown tags.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

It is doumented in KB307594

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-----
"Roady [MVP]" said in news:u6Iz%[email protected]:

This doesn't work fo Outlook 2000. It works for Outlook 2002 SP1 and
above only

I wasn't sure. When a feature is undocumented, it is also undocumented at
what version it became an undocumented feature. Oh well, guess bob will
have to use something like SpamPal with its HTML-Modify plug-in that can
strip out the nasties from HTML.

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Brian Tillman" said in news:%[email protected]:

OL2000 won't read that registry key.


Um, no. HTML interpreters toss unknown tags.

But it sounded like bob was going to read his messages in text-only mode so there would be no rendering of the HTML. Yet he was going to "recognize HTML tags" to detect spam. If he ignores the bogus HTML tags, as you mention for the HTML interpreters, then he would miss out on any content detection he now uses within the body of the message for the text within the bogus HTML tags. There may be an occasional screwup in HTML coding but not when you have dozens of invalid tags. So bob could use a threshold in the number of invalid HTML tags. If he uses content filtering, it still should look within the tags in case they are bogus ones and will be seen by recipients who are reading in plain-text mode just like bob wants to do.

Not all HTML-formatted e-mails have an text-alternative multipart MIME section as a text-only counterpart to the HTML coded part. Hotmail doesn't. HTML-Modify, by default, detects any HTML-formatted e-mails with a missing multipart/alternative text-type MIME section as spam. Everything from Hotmail was getting marked as spam so I had to disable this detection in the plug-in. Not every outbound message from Hotmail is spam (but a large percentage of inbound messages to Hotmail are spam). So a user reading in text-only mode doesn't have a text-only MIME part to read. They only have the HTML part. Maybe that's why some folks see blank messages because their e-mail client, in text-only mode, refuses to show any of the HTML part. Maybe not, and if so then they will see the bogus tag and the text therein, as in "<RE: Do you see this? It's in a tag.>".

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