Re: Outlook and AutoPreview

From: *Vanguard* (no-email_at_post-reply-in-newsgroup.invalid)
Date: 03/06/04 

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 22:48:29 -0600

"George Hester" said in news:Omk21bwAEHA.1420@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl:
> Definitely. There is nothing to "activate." The way it works is
<skip>

Okay guys (George and damned), just how does looking at the text-only
view of the plain-text MIME part of an HTML-formatted e-mail in anyway
open a graphic file to retrieve it from the spammer's server since that
graphic was obviously never opened and cannot be presented in a
text-only view?

AutoPreview and Preview are NOT the same thing. Preview mode will use
IE's libraries to render the HTML-formatted e-mail. If part of that
HTML code is an IMG tag to retrieve a graphic file (or, to retrieve any
file) then, yes, that could be a web bug. AutoPreview does NOT render
the HTML code. It shows you in a text-only view the first few lines of
the plain-text MIME part of the message. It's just text. It isn't
HTML. So no files are getting retrieved because no IMG tag is getting
honored.

AutoPreview is NOT Preview mode. AutoPreview just shows the first few
lines - and only of the text and only in a text-only view - of each
message. Of course, I suppose you could have both AutoPreview and
Preview modes turned on but that would be stupid since you don't need to
see the first few lines of a message in one pane that you also see in
its entirety in another pane. If you want to test this, get MsgTag who
borrowed the web bug technique from spammers. It lets you see when
someone has opened your HTML-formatted message and works by using a
unique web bug that is used for only that particular e-mail message. If
you turn off the Preview pane and use only AutoPreview, the MsgTag user
will NOT see that you have [partially] viewed their message to see the
first few *text* lines of their message while using a *text-only* view
to show those *text-only* lines.

None of the security zones will prevent the use and success of web bugs
in HTML-formatted messages unless: (1) You view that message in a
text-only view, like AutoPreview, since the image is not retrieved
because it obviously cannot be presented in a text-only view; (2) Use an
e-mail monitor, like Magic Mail Monitor or another, which can let you
read your pending e-mails but ONLY in a text-only view; or, (3) Get
anti-spam software that strips out linked images, like the HTML-Modify
plug-in for SpamPal.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Outlook and AutoPreview
    ... > AutoPreview and Preview are NOT the same thing. ... > HTML code is an IMG tag to retrieve a graphic file (or, ... > borrowed the web bug technique from spammers. ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
  • Re: Outlook and AutoPreview
    ... *not* "AutoPreview". ... it renders the HTML of any HTML formated message according to ... tags, tags and of course tags with possible WMI/ADSI ... > HTML code is an IMG tag to retrieve a graphic file (or, ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
  • Re: Body of Calendar appears in the preview
    ... set to "Day/Week/Month View with AutoPreview"? ... if the graphic file is big), or unless it is a "binaries" group. ... want to have to download graphics files from a text-based newsgroup. ... Location and the body of the calendar item. ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook.calendaring)
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