To update and expand my understanding of spam/malicious code techniques and how to guard against them, please explain this oddity.
By using preview panel mode in MSN Mail, I was able to safely preview, but not open, the following: [From:] Alanna [Subject:] Fwd: [Message:] spring OFFICE 2003 $80: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP $80; [etc.] [URL, beginning with hyper text transfer protocol, that I will not give, except to state that it had that difficult to recall, record, and report characteristic of long complex query string, with lots of two digit numbers followed by percentage sign, at hotmail dot com--hotmail is a URL destination???] [text] expected fell out nature blew outside cheat car, seems object wind news wife, very familiar recognize patient should fathers office, there pride hurry sir air hot less worth [etc., I think you get the idea] As a former poet, when I was significantly younger than I am now, I used to try, after a bout of too much pot and alcohol, to generate nonsense text that seemed to be saying something, was almost on the verge of making sense, but slipped away surrealistically. My deconstruction experimental goal was to ramble on, without saying anything that could be interpreted in any manner whatsoever. {{+}} Some say I accidentally perfected this and spew such things forth habitually :^] At any rate, is this a spammer using a Random Text Generator just to fill in the message area? Could there be "hidden malicious code" in such text? Er, this is plain text, I turned off the "read HTML" in my email client. Any comments? Is it safe to preview panel such crap? Steven Streight STREIGHT SITE SYSTEMS Web Usability Analysis Web Content Writing Online & Direct Marketing [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.vaspersthegrate.blogspot.com *Web Usability* www.streightsite.blogspot.com *Mentally Correct Marketing* www.ArtTestExplosion.blogspot.com *Experimental Computer Art* www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/0408-user-observation.html *latest published online article* ____ • The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM • ____ To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Send Your Posts To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To set a personal password send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words: "set WDVLTALK pw=yourpassword" in the body of the email. To change subscription settings to the wdvltalk digest version: http://wdvl.internet.com/WDVL/Forum/#sub ________________ http://www.wdvl.com _______________________ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.