Do not display image from spam emails
Looks familiar with the email below? Yes, this is one of the emails caught by Gmail filter. Ok, if you happen to receive spam emails with image inserted (it looks like the image below), do not open them. Why?? See the explanation below.
Why you can’t
According to Wikipedia –
Web bugs are used by e-mail marketers, spammers, Cyberstalkers and phishers, to verify that e-mail addresses are valid, that the content of e-mails has made it past the spam filters, and that the e-mail is actually viewed by users. When the user reads the e-mail, the e-mail client requests the image, letting the sender know that the e-mail address is valid and that e-mail was viewed. The e-mail need not contain an advertisement or anything else related to the commercial activity of the spammer. This makes detection of such e-mails harder for mail filters and users.
So if you have opened this kind of email before, the sender will know that your email is valid, and that you’ve been reading his email. So he knows that you’re one of his ‘loyal readers’, and you’ll get a higher chance to receive this email again in near future.
Don’t worry too much, if you’re using email client such as MS Outlook or online email client such as Yahoo Mail or Google Gmail, this shouldn’t be a big problem, since the embedded URL or images will not be downloaded automatically. BUT, the spam filter does not really work properly, yeah nothing is perfect in this world. How to identify your email client is protecting you well??? Btw, I’m only covering on email clients that I frequently use.
Yahoo Mail
By default, the settings should be there. However, it seems that Yahoo Spam filter does not work well sometimes (worse than Gmail). To modify it,
1. From your top right menu, click ‘Option’ -> ‘mail option’
2. On your left bar menu, choose ‘Spam’ It will display menu like below. Choose them according to your needs
Gmail
I don’t see this setting on Gmail Setting menu. By default Gmail won’t display images, and there are options for each emails on whether to download the images or not (I’m sure you’re familiar with this).
MS Outlook
By default, the setting works fine. You’ll see this message below on each email containing images
To edit the settings, from the top menu bar, choose ‘Tools’ – ‘Option’ – ‘Security’ tab – ‘Change Automatic Download Settings
Finally, don’t let your email crowded by spam emails.
update 18-Jan-2008
Yahoo Mail has updated their anti spam filter
spamming is one thing and phishing is another. most of my spams are handled perfectly by google but sometimes gmail also set some of friends email as spam. due to this, i still need to look at the one that were set as spam before deleting it. and there’s also blog spams. i thought after pr4 becomes pr0 they would stop. didnt
Spams are really getting into the net nowadays…
Good tips..
I hate that kind of email
Huh, spam mails.
Thanks for sharing the tips
Me too, I treat spam specially.. to my trash
Thank you for the heads up on that. It never occurred to me that it would be possible to track was mail opened through request for picture. By the way I’m with azwanhadzree on gmail, spam is handled rather efficiently, sometimes even to efficiently I’d dare say i.e. some valid emails end up being labeled as spam.
I should be more careful from now on.. i hate spammers and also bugs, spyware, malware.. but why my comment is flagged as spam here? hehe
This is some great info! I was always under the impression that I had to click on something within the email before any damage is done. I know now that I was mistaken, thanks again!
real usefull info! thanks for this tips, and what about of settings in mozilla thunderbird?