Spammers, Images, And the unfriendly

[Rift]

I'm sure that some of us know it is easy to grab someones information with a simple HTML tag and then sending them to a webpage. Things like their IP, ISP, Country/State/Town, Preferred Language, etc. If you arent, then perhaps i can help make you paranoid. It's as easy as inserting an HTML tag that uses the src= attribute in it's tag. These tags can be used on webpages, e-mails, even forums. I thought id give this helpful tip:

some spammers and advertisers will insert an img tag into their e-mails, one too small for you to see graphically. If you open the email you dont even have to reply for them to know that you have received it. This is a good strategy for them to know if your e-mail is dead or alive. Hotmail provides a way to turn off images while viewing messages. This helps in the event someone is trying to harvest your information, wether it be a person, or a website.
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Here are instructions to disable images in your e-mail, via hotmail:

Sign into Hotmail

Click Options in the top right hand corner of the main page.

Click the "Mail" button on the left hand margin of the Options page.

click My Display Settings on the "Mail" page. From there click the radiobutton that says "Remove Images Until Messages Are Reviewed". It is located at the bottom of this page.

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This wont prevent you from seeing attached images, but will prevent images linked to somewhere on the internet. This can help you in the fight against spam and help you to keep your privacy. As for the webpages and forums.. All i can suggest is if you are that paranoid that someone is watching, view the sourcecode of the webpage and look for any suspicious IP's or Hostmasks.

-Rift-


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It would be nice to see people giving directions on how to disable images in other e-mail services and clients:)

[Tami]

Gmail automatically disables embedded images as spam protection. Here are the instructions to turn the images on if the email is from someone you know and trust:

From Gmail Help Files:

When you read new messages, some images may not be visible immediately. This is because Gmail disables images sent to you to protect you from unknown senders, like spammers, who use images and links to verify that your email address is real.
Here's how to view the images:

Log in to your Gmail account.
Open the message.
Click 'Display External Images' under the sender's address at the top of your message.
Now you'll be able to see all of the images in the message.