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General discussion

Empty Emails, what are they?

Jun 30, 2005 10:43PM PDT

In one of my accounts (I have 7) I get 2 or 3 "empty" emails daily. All they contain is the sender's address, no text, no subject matter.

I do not bother opening them (I opened one or two long ago when this started) and just delete them. I have the preview pane shut off in OE (have for years-- don't want any nasties auto-executing) so I am not super concerned about any infections.

I use AVG, which scans incoming e-mails. I am wondering if these empties are a result of AVG removing a virus at the server level and that's why it comes up empty. If that's what it is, it would be good to know.

Discussion is locked

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Stripped mails.
Jun 30, 2005 11:30PM PDT

From what I hear it's either stripped emails or someone's email spammer software sending it out.

Please don't ask how to make it stop. It's not a result of what you noted.

Bob

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blank emails
Jul 7, 2005 10:57PM PDT

to stop any email, I just click messenges, then click block sender. You can block by the @.com or by the sender, in any case it will automatically be removed to deleted folder.

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Don't trust that "FROM" info
Jul 7, 2005 11:13PM PDT

Blocking or filtering email by ''sender'' is just about useless against spam because any email created by a server-side script can ''say'' it is from anyone.

I had to prove that to my girlfriend, so I ''had'' George Dubya send here an email.

If you look deep into the header of the email you might be able to track it to the sending IP, but I don't know of any filtering program that would block email by IP.

As for what those empty messages are - good question. Most of these are HTML style and that means they can hide a lot of bad stuff within the head (non-displaying) part of the document - even some stuff that can execute if your Windows update isn't quite updated enough or if Gates' crew overlooked another loophole.

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How
Jul 8, 2005 1:09AM PDT

How can you have emails sent from another person?

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Do research on "SPOOFING"
Jul 8, 2005 1:28AM PDT

No need for me to duplicate the spoofing discussions.

Bob

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In this case the field is empty.
Jul 8, 2005 12:44AM PDT

And your solution fails.

Got another?

Bob

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1 Step Further
Jul 7, 2005 11:45PM PDT

I Get Them Too, but their from noone. No sender, no content, nothing. Just a blank on the whole line. i have heard that it something before it gets to your pc scrubbing it, like being behind a T1, or the ISP Perhaps.

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May be address verification
Jul 8, 2005 1:45AM PDT

Sometimes, blank emails are not really blank. I have often found 1 pixel images included. When you read the message, an image call is made to a server, and your email address has just been verified as a live one. Lots of lovely new spam ensues . . .

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Images Display without Permission

I'm having trouble with images in spam appearing in my OE preview pane, even though I haven't clicked on the bar at the top("Some pictures have been blocked to help prevent the sender from identifying your computer. Click here to download pictures.")

How can I prevent spam from displaying images in their email on my computer, short of subscribing to text-only email and/or turning off the preview pane? -- but maybe I should do that.


"bglover" wrote: "I have the preview pane shut off in OE (have for years -- don't want any nasties auto-executing)"

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The advice is worth repeating.
Jul 8, 2005 4:48AM PDT

The PREVIEW PANE is a security as well as a privacy risk. If you leave it enabled, you leak information as well as leave the door open to exploits of OE.

-> I know of no other cure other than to turn it off.

Bob

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Preveiw Pane
Jul 8, 2005 9:32PM PDT

ALWAYS have the preview pane turned OFF

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Preview Pane OFF May Not Be Solution
Jul 9, 2005 10:12AM PDT

Greetings:

I think the best solution is keepiing the Preview Pane open because the alternative is to double click those questionable emails which then opens a new window just to see what's inside. Who knows, it may be important and you'll end up deleting or blocking something of value. Unless you have an awesome spam program you may be crating more problems and taking way too much time checking mail.

I have Cloudmark's Safety Bar which automatically works 100% of the time. It puts my legitimate emails into my inbox and everything else into a treset spam folder . I may get one or two to slip into my inbox but it's rare... Then all I have to do is "right" click on the spam folder that is setup during the install and click on "delete contents" and never have to see the contents of any span anything offensive or fraudulent and save a ton of time.

Remember, if it's never opened it will not do harm..., but double click and open a new window and you've used resources and taken extra time! I get about 500 emails per day and have 20 accounts and it gets them all!

Good Luck!

PS: My firt time here!

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The safest method is to......
Jul 18, 2005 11:13AM PDT

NEVER open email from a sender you don't know.

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empty msgs and other junk on email
Jul 9, 2005 3:33PM PDT

I've found, and this may not work for everyone, that if I put the email addresses of my "acceptable senders" on the safe sender list in the filter settings on Outlook and set Outlook to send the rest to the Junk Folder, I have tons less email to wade through. This way, the only emails that show up in my inbox are those that I want to be there. This does require some administrative attention as you have to add those new ones to that list or risk missing them. I figure that if I miss a message, and it's really important then, just like a phone call I may miss, they'll call back.
Just a reality check folks, HOW IMPORTANT IS MOST EMAIL ANYWAY? If its from family and friends and such put them on your safe senders list. If its a new friend or a service that you want updates from, put them on your safe senders list. Anyone else can go suck eggs as far as I'm concerned.....my life is too busy to root through all the "larger breasts, larger *******, save a billion dollars in Africa, offshore medication and send this to 7 friends or you'll have bad luck" crap that comes my way. I'm more than happy to let Outlook filter 99% of it to a junk box and risk missing one or two that I may or may not want to get anyway. Any new friend will understand if they're a friend. We REALLY are becoming too much of slaves to these dumb machines and for no good reason.

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M-T Emails
Jul 9, 2005 3:41PM PDT

by the way......I have a busy house here with three kids and their own email boxes here too. We get very little spam here due the the intelligent use of spam filtering and a good ISP. Makes me wonder what is going on with you where you'd need 7 ddresses...... Just a gentle thought that maybe you need some futher education before you contribute to yet more spam clogging up the web by adding yet another unnecessary web account.... and please don't take this as a personal assault as its not meant in that vein.... Good luck to you.

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Actually I find your question
Jul 9, 2005 7:22PM PDT

quite presumptuous and offensive.. and wouldn't even bother to answer it.

You make that atatement in a vacuum as if it is impossible for any invididual to need 7 accounts. Well let me just say they arent all for personal use, but serve other purposes beyond back and forth to friends and family. I wont delve further into it. Only two are personal email accounts.

Perhaps you should get off your high horse tho.

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empty e mails
Jul 10, 2005 7:13AM PDT

I belong to a group in the smartgroup and we get a lot of blank e mail which are ussually because the people who send the e mails are using incredimail and the system does not seem to like incredimail once the person switches of and uses some other mailsystem the e mail goes through fine

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Empty e-mails
Jul 10, 2005 5:16PM PDT

This may not be as insidious as some replys would suggest, firstly do you know the senders? I have had a similar problem and after a lot of back tracking I found the problem to be the my ISP had a problem resolving e-mails written in Lotus Notes and as with you all I received was a blank e-mail with the senders details. Just a thought

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Empty Emails
Jun 18, 2006 4:42PM PDT