JavaScript considered harmful

[John W. Baxter]

In article <200201090014.g090Ele3009930 at lin2.andrew.cmu.edu>, Brian E
Gallew <geek+ at andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:

> Then <cliechti at gmx.net> spoke up and said:
> > User-Agent: Xnews/4.06.22
> > NNTP-Posting-Host: 217.162.158.29
> > what i do not like is HTML mail with external links... this way the 1 pixel 
> > (or larger) image can be used to identify you by email address. (and get 
> > your mail on the "verified" lists)
> > 
> > a filtering proxy does help agains some of the collectors but there are 
> > just too many out there.
> > 
> > any real solutions availble?
> 
> Yep.  "Don't use HTML mail, or HTML-enabled mail readers."

Or, more extreme, cancel the internet account and get out of the
business that requires you have one.  Some would consider that to be
overkill.

For the past few years, I've been using vendor-specific local parts in
my domain for product registrations.  This came in handy recently, when
Palm leaked or sold (I have a guess as to which) addresses.

Now, mail addressed to the Palm-specific address results in (edited):

The original message was received at Tue, 8 Jan 2002 20:25:35 -0800
(PST)
from ...

   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<jwbpalm at com.invalid>
    (reason: 550 <jwbpalm at com.invalid> Palm has sold me down the river)


That seemed like appropriate wording for the 550 message.  ;-)

  --John