Hi All
I use a dual boot(Win98/RH9.0) system.
When composing an e mail message with a picture
in Outlook Express, I paste the picture inside the
message area itself, I do not attach it to the mail
so as to save my friends the anxiety of opening an
attachment and getting infected (Friends running
Win boxes).
I use sylpheed (0.8.2claws)in RH9.0 and am using this
for the past2 years. Now only I realise that such a
facility is not available in sylpheed.
Or is it available and has to be compiled during
configuration time and I missed out?

Cheeka

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.os.linux.slackware.]
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 19:25:30 +0500, N S Srikanth <nssrikanth@hotmail.com> wrote:
> When composing an e mail message with a picture
> in Outlook Express, I paste the picture inside the
> message area itself, I do not attach it to the mail
> so as to save my friends the anxiety of opening an
> attachment and getting infected (Friends running
> Win boxes).

I don't use Sylpheed or Kmail, so I can't help with that part of the
problem, but let me correct a gap in your understanding of email: there
is no danger in opening attachments per se. The danger comes when the
attachment includes malicious code designed to run on the same system
that it's run on (and, generally, malicious emails will find ways of
running themselves, with Outlook Express).

As long as there's no malicious code in the attachment (e.g it's a
picture), there's no danger of getting infected. If they're that
worried about it, they can always save the attachment to disc somewhere
and scan it for viruses before opening it.


--
Simon <simon@no-dns-yet.org.uk> **** GPG: F4A23C69
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N S Srikanth wrote:

> Hi All
> I use a dual boot(Win98/RH9.0) system.
> When composing an e mail message with a picture
> in Outlook Express, I paste the picture inside the
> message area itself, I do not attach it to the mail
> so as to save my friends the anxiety of opening an
> attachment and getting infected (Friends running
> Win boxes).

It's still an attachment: mail clients not able to display the attachment
"inline" will offer to save it or open it with an external application.

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Simon wrote:

....
> As long as there's no malicious code in the attachment (e.g it's a
> picture),

That's the problem: windoze nicely "hides" extensions, but most people don't
realise this, and when they're told a picture is attached and they see it as
'picture.jpg' they're click on it...only it's actually called
'picture.jpg.exe' with Windoze hiding the ".exe" bit. The problem came from
Windoze hiding extensions (by default install?) *AND* allowing dots in a
filename - allow either, not BOTH.

> there's no danger of getting infected. If they're that
> worried about it, they can always save the attachment to disc somewhere
> and scan it for viruses before opening it.

For Windoze users, unless mail agent can scan, I'd advise *ALWAYS* save
attachments to disk and scan before opening (_AND_ turn off extension hiding).