View pictures in e-mail inline?

[Derek Broughton]

Matthew Flaschen wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:
>> This sort of FUD really amazes me.  It doesn't let spammers know that
>> I've read a message.

I don't mean to accuse you personally of FUD but you're helping spread it. 
It's the way that it's presented in the KMail documentation without support
or explanation.

> I should clarify; it /can/ if the spammer wants it to.  You just use an
> image tag like:

> 
> <img
> src="http://www.cheapstocks.com/tracking?email=news%40pointerstop.ca"
> width="1" height="1" />
> 
> Then, they use some CGI script or even just a log analyzer

Even without such directed email, the log analyzer will show the IP of
anybody opening the link, but I'd argue that these are _privacy_ issues,
not _security_ issues.
> 
>   In the first place, I'd need to actually have read (ie,
>> opened) the message.
> 
> That's correct.

and almost all spam gets sent elsewhere by KMail & bogofilter.

>> If you were to suggest (and I would) that you shouldn't turn this option
>> on for the inbox, I'd be fine with that.
> 
> I use Thunderbird, which I believe doesn't have the option to do it by
> folder.  It would be better to do it that way.

Yeah, but this _is_ about KMail - where you can (and I do) turn on external
reference loading by folder.  So my inbox has them off, another folder for
_solicited_ commercial email has HTML & external references on.  A third,
for a helpdesk where I can't afford to spam-filter but many valid senders
will use HTML, has HTML on, but external reference loading off.

In any case, Thunderbird's spam filtering is pretty good, and also catches
most spam, so again, you still shouldn't open most of it - and therefore
almost all of those references should be harmless.
-- 
derek