[SpamCop-List] Re: Too many Links?

[Mike Easter]

eddie wrote:
> Will OE still transmit data if you render it after selecting "Work
> Offline" from the OE menu??

No, but the insecure and unhealthy mailuser agent-browser rendering
engine relationship can still execute whatever it wants to.  For example
opening a virmail 'accidentally' and poorly configured doesn't need to be
online to cause trouble.  Also, an embedded javascript could 'set itself
up' to do something else when you got back online.

> I have never used it that way but if it's
> off line, nothing should be transmitted.

Offline is offline.  Rendering is rendering.  Running scripts is running
scripts.  An executable is an executable.  You have to know which of
those you want to be doing and which you don't.

> I usually "unhook" my computer from the LAN via one of the many
> sortware switches I have, when I actually wish to view a piece of
> spam. The "legit" links light up and then I know whom to LART.

Offline is a strategy.

There are any number of 'offline' tricks.  Some spams obscure what a link
is so that you can't 'see it' in the status line, and you have to 'click
on it' in the offline condition and respond to the alert about whether or
not you want to go online - 'no' -- but the 'translated' link has been
put into a browser addressline in a readable condition so that you can
'fetch it up' -- and then do whatever you need to do to see if that is
the 'real' target or just an intermediate step to some redirect.

Typically the 'trickier' the spam, the more complex the skills which need
to be employed after the first trick.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin