HTML mail

[John Goerzen]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 10:47:10AM -0500, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
>  - plain text version of the message
>  - HTML version of the same Message
>  - jpeg image
> 
> It's perfectly possible to view your message as intended with the inline
> image without the HTML MIME part.  You can simply send messages in plain
> text and include images as MIME parts (either displayed inline or as
> attachments).  HTML is *not* needed to send an image.

What's more, if your image is represented by an <IMG> tag in HTML, many
people will not see it because of the security risks of downloading such
links, and of the requirements of being online at the time it is downloaded.

As an example, a spammer could insert a link:

<IMG SRC="http://spamserver.com/cgi-bin/validemail?good=foo@debian.org">

The CGI could note the good message and pass back a GIF*.

Thus relying on HTML to transmit pictures is really not a good thing to do
at all.

* Of course it's a GIF.  GIFs are evil and this is a spammer, right? :-)

> Further, depending on your MUA, the word *not* above (and again here)
> might be displayed as bold.  All without using HTML.  So I don't live
> in a cave and I don't send HTML.
> 
> Hope this helps!
> 
> Peter
> 
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