Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Email Script Error

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Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 02-17-2002, 03:50 PM:

I seem to be getting a new and irritating problem with my email. When I get an email that is obviously an advertisement sometimes when Outlook Express tries to open it, my computer complains with the following screen.

Sometimes after I open it, the ad has some flash or animation. I figured that my computer just doesn't like this fancy email. Sometimes the advertisement is rather plain. All of these ads are things I didn't ask for like Lose Weight Now! All of this is Spam. For a while I rigorously clicked on the unsubscribe link. I don't do that anymore as you all have convinced me that it just shows them that you exist.

I don't think it is a virus. I keep an up to date virus program on my computer that has caught a few viruses lately.

I used to have a problem with a mortgage company that had a return address that was .co.uk. My problem with them, other than they were unsubscribable is that they sent their message in bad HTML code and it came in to my email box raw and I couldn't read it. I thought, "How stupid can these people be to send me spam I can't even read?" They have given up.

Does anyone know how to filter email in Outlook Express or can you recommend a product that does filter email?

By the way, I don't have any problems with regular email.

Windows '98, IE 5.5, Outlook Express 5.

Posted by Christopher Santapaola (Member # 1015) on 02-17-2002, 04:04 PM:

Your solution is easy. You have hotmail so use that instead of outlook. Hotmail has a block sender function that is over all pretty easy to use. As an after thought you might want to visit windows update and see if there are any recomended udates.(update to IE6) If I were you I would unistall Outlook and only use the http://hotmail.com page for my email (which is what I do) of course you might have to start remembering you password.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-17-2002, 04:06 PM:

Turn off html. I used to get that all the time until Scott explained to me that sending email in html mode bloats it and many readers cannot read it.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-17-2002, 04:33 PM:

For many reasons, I would suggest using a mailer that doesn't arbitrarily execute code received in email...

As for blocking spam, I've lately had very good luck with "spamassassin": http://spamassassin.org/

It works by "scoring" mail based upon certain criteria that are common to spam messages and rare in non-spam messages. The score "threshold" at which something is declared to be spam is configurable and non-spammers can be added to a "whitelist" to prevent their messages from erroneously being tagged as spam. It adds an "X-Spam-Status" header to the mail, which can then be used within your mailer to filter the messages.

Aside from a couple of mailing list/newsletter things, I haven't seen it detect any "false positives" in the default configuration.

The only bad part about this it requires that you have shell access to your ISP's mail server as well as access to a mail-filtering utility called 'procmail.'

In any case, I've been running this at home and work for the last couple of weeks and it has cut down significantly on the spam that ends up in my inbox.

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 02-17-2002, 05:06 PM:

Ian, every time you open an html email, you can be notifying the sender that you opened it. All it takes is a one pixel .gif or .jpg in the file. What happens is the html looks to load the picture from the redifering (woops, referring

) source, which then can have a script set up to look at the log files, based on the name of the image, which can change with every spam-mail sent... "Ah HA! Ian opened our spam mail! Let's send him MORE, MORE, MORE!" The idea is so simple, I could probably program the whole setup in less than a day.

Outlook Enema is one of the worst ways to deal with email. I use a strictly text based email program (Agent) and never reply to the little spam that comes in. I don't get fancy type fonts, and I have to decide what images I want to see, but I have _NEVER_ repeat, _NEVER_, had to deal with an email based virus. As a side benefit, I get next to zero spam. That spam I do get, I trace headers and get the account zapped. (But that is another story.)

Please consider abandoning html email.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-17-2002, 05:35 PM:

I have gotten a few of those e-mails that notify senders when you open them, however MY Outlook Express pops up with an alert that says "send return receipt?" or something like that. It gives the standard "yes/no" options.

Plus if anything is sent out for any reason a box pops up and shows me its send status. No way I could miss that.

Maybe the Mac version I am using of OE is special somehow.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 02-17-2002, 08:01 PM:

Well I have taken your advice. I have turned off HTML in my outlook express. I have made it so it doesn't open the mail until I open the mail.

I haven't figured out spamassasin yet. It looks complicated, but it may not be.

We'll see how successful this is. I am looking forward to a good email filter.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-17-2002, 08:13 PM:

Ian, in OE6 (and probably 5), go to Tools/Message Rules/Blocked Senders List... and you can block anyone you want. If this isn't the exact procedure for OE5, just open the Help menus and search on "blocking senders" or "blocking" or some variation. OE5 can do it.

I've been running Outlook and Outlook Express for years and I have NEVER been infected by a virus. Why? Because I spend $30 a year for a first-class anti-virus package, PC-Cillin 2000 by Trend Micro, www.antivirus.com . Outlook has many cool tools in it that make my life better (well, that might be a stretch, but I do like the tools). I will not give it up. So $30 a year is inconsequential to me, and the Trend product has never let me down. We used Trend products where I used to work to protect our Exchange servers as well as all desktops and it worked great there too. Trend is also generally the first company to release new pattern files when new viruses are discovered. Some of our users at that company would not tolerate the delays and general weirdness from products by McAffee and Norton. There were virtually no complaints from the same users when running Trend's product on their systems.

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- dave
Look at this! His chin strap has been cut!

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 02-18-2002, 12:09 AM:

I was under the impression that with Outlook *Express* you could turn off *outgoing* html but not *incoming* html. With regular Outlook, you can turn of incoming html.

The explanation I got was something about pressure from the Direct Marketing Association.

Has this issue been changed for OE 6.0?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-18-2002, 02:12 AM:

I use Eudora for email, one of the main reasons being that it has a 'disable HTML executable content when viewing messages' option. So it'll still show the graphics and formatting, but any other code won't work, including HTML-based viruses such as Kakworm.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 02-18-2002, 08:33 AM:

Joe: The "web bug" HTML thingy isn't a read receipt. What it is is an HTML document with a referenced image - the reader has to request the image from an outside site. This is fine, but with a "bug", the image is small - 1x1 - and the image name is coded to your email address. When you request the image, the request is logged and the email is known to be active.
If you can read HTML mail, there isn't much any defence. Blocking "bugs" means blocking all images.

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Bloody apprentice! I've taught him everything I know, and he's still stupid!

Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 02-18-2002, 03:04 PM:

A quick theory on html script in email - if you bring outlook express offline while you check the mail I believe that it will not send out the scripting error. At least that is what I do when I sift through my junkmail. Of course I could just be fooling myself. haaa