[ On Thursday, November 1, 2001 at 07:57:18 (-0000), Paul Walsh wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: [Exim] Stop Frank S.
>
> It's a bit like saying "will my local TV company stop showing programmes in
> colour cos I only have a monochrome set"
No, I'm afraid you're completely wrong there with that analogy.
There are a tremendous number of security _and_ privacy issues with
HTML e-mail (even without JavaScript, VBS, or whatever other
"enhancements" your mailer might conveniently interpret for you)!
HTML e-mail is more like having the TV broadcasters each come into your
house and install their service via a two-way tranciever with camera and
micrhophone that has permanent power and no on/off switch, and which
records and reports to them every moment of TV you watch, all while
possibly watching (and listening to) you watch it! :-)
HTML e-mail is only safe if you know 100% for certain that your client
won't do anything you don't want it to when it parses and formats the
message for you. Unfortunately there are so many nifty tricks and dark
corners in this process that I don't think there's any HTML-capable
mailer that's safe enough to use if you're worried about these issues,
and to that end it's the responsibility of senders (and maybe even list
distributors) to not send HTML-formatted e-mail to "the public" (or even
to the well known subscribers of a "closed" list like this).
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <gwoods@???> <woods@???>
Planix, Inc. <woods@???>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>
