[Hidden-tech] Drum Roll Please.... As another spammer walks tothefinancial guillotine

[ussailis at shaysnet.com]

Since I have had an email acct (about 1992) I have never read email using a
"client" on my computer. I always read it from the server. Until the past
two years, I just struggled thru HTML code, or deleted HTML email without
reading it.

I could never figure out why Mr Bill caused such a program like Outlook to
change 2 lines of text into over 990 lines of code. Yes, I actually counted
one of these. My "990 lines" could be off by a reasonable error amount, but
the two lines of text is not.

Read on the server? Up to 1996 I used a VAX and "Mail." From then to 2006 I
used Telnet & Pine. Now I generally use www.mail2web.com (and ocassionally
go to HTML because there is no other text format), or use Putty to get to
the server, and again, use Pine.

www.mail2web.com supports either format.

What's fun about all this is to look for the hidden pixel, or find the neat
way that phishers get the sucker to go to their web site that looks exactly
like PayPal or some bank.

I have often wondered why PayPal doesn't go after them for using their
copyright logos and info on an different site, or using the web site
directly. Possibly PayPal isn't big enough, but Bank of America sure is.
Assigning this to a small team effort and some lawyers would be a trivial
cost. 

I have told some of my users to try www.mail2web.com. It is an excellent
way to delete spam 100 at a time. Half dozen clicks, and gonzo.


Jim U.
jim at nationalwireless.com
  
PS Yes, I agree. HTML email is just plain stoopid. Furthermore I think many
web pages are loaded up with too much code. Often I just want to look
something. I don't need to look at a museum's worth of pictures of pictures
in the process.


Original Message:
-----------------
From: Robert Heller heller at deepsoft.com
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:27:24 -0400
To: sreed at avacoda.com, hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Drum Roll Please.... As another spammer walks
tothefinancial guillotine


   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
   ** If you did, we all thank you.


At Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:57:02 -0400 Scott Reed <sreed at avacoda.com> wrote:

> 
>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's
area.
>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
> 
> 
> Some spam is just sent to see if the email address is valid. An HTML 
> image (could be just one white pixel) is included in the body of the 
> message and when your email client opens the message, it loads the image 
> from the spammer's server and your email address gets flagged as worthy 
> of lots more spam. You can avoid this by configuring your email client 
> not to display images without your confirmation and your subsequent 
> diligence in confirming display of images only from non-spammers.

Even better: don't use an E-Mail client that displays HTML at all (or
completely disable the display of HTML E-Mail). There is no *valid*
reason for HTML E-Mail, and there never was.  Really.  99.9% of E-Mail
is nowhere 'formal' enough to need or deserve 'formatting', other than
the sort of formatting available with the space bar and/or the
return/enter key.  Do you dig out your fancy acid-free paper and your
calligraphy pens to scribble a note?  No, you just grab an envelope and
scribble on the back -- most E-Mail is really just the electronic
version of this. There are way too many ways to get 'screwed' by HTML
E-Mail -- not only images via cgi ('web bugs'), but all sorts of fun
with <embed> tags and JavaScript.  It also eats bandwidth big time -- a
100 character plain text E-Mail message can end up as 1k bytes once all
of the HTML tags, style options, etc. are added in.

> 
> ussailis at shaysnet.com [10/10/2008 9:44 PM] wrote:
> >    
> > Here's the part that I don't get...
> >
> > I get a lot of spam that doesn't have an identifiable product, for
example
> > a "little blue pill," has no address to get this product because the
return
> > email line is a "no reply," and no other info, other than "male
> > enhancement."
> >
> > Nor does this spam have any attachments.
> >
> > Now I can figure out what it is about, but what is the point? To sell
> > something a communication method is required.
> >
> > What is the point of the spam? Why did someone go to the trouble of
writing
> > and sending it?
> >
> > Jim U.
> > jim at nationalwireless.com
> >   
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>                                                                          


-- 
Robert Heller             -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar!
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heller at deepsoft.com       -- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk
                                                                            
                            
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