/ Graphics in E-mail Messages

Graphics in E-mail Messages

My incoming email will not show graphics. Why not? Celeste Stewart

E-mail Security Features

Believe it or not, this is actually a security feature. I know, it sounds odd. As if pictures of cute puppies could possibly be dangerous! Two main types of threats are associated with e-mail images: malware and Web beacons.

Malware Threats in Photo Attachments

If someone’s computer is infected with a virus or malware, it’s not uncommon for the program to spread by embedding itself in a file. When this file is shared with other users, the malware is shared too. While the images that your family members and friends send may be harmless, you can’t be 100 percent sure. A good antivirus/anti-spyware program will catch most of the attachments containing malware, but newer threats may not yet have been secured against.

Web Beacons

The other threat involving graphics in e-mail messages has privacy implications. E-mail marketers often send out e-newsletters, ads, and other messages with graphics and other HTML features. This makes the messages visually appealing. However, graphics have a little secret: they can tell the marketer whether or not you opened the e-mail.

Who cares? You might not care so much if you subscribed to the newsletter or want the coupons that landed in your inbox, but what about if the message was pure spam? You already know better than to respond to spammers as doing so confirms that your e-mail address is valid and thereby makes it more valuable for selling to other spammers, right? Graphics do the same thing. They confirm that your e-mail address goes to a real live person.

Graphics can do this because when you open a message with embedded graphics, a connection is made to the server hosting the graphic. Your computer must communicate with this server in order to display the image. Spammers can then review the server logs to see which recipients’ computers connected. It’s all done with software, so it’s super easy for spammers to verify good e-mail addresses.

Images used in this manner are known as “Web beacons.” To make it even trickier, plain text e-mail messages can also contain invisible Web beacons. The spammer creates a small (usually one pixel by one pixel), white image and hides it somewhere within the message. You don’t see any images but the image is there, quietly telling the spammer that he’s found a good e-mail address.

Because of these concerns, many e-mail clients are set to block images.

Displaying Graphics in E-mails

If you have a good antivirus/anti-malware program installed on your computer, then you can make a couple of adjustments so that you can receive the graphics that you trust and block those that you do not trust.

The steps vary depending on your email client. Using Windows Live Mail as an example, go to Tools > Safety Options > Security. Now find the section that is labeled “Download Images.” Place a check mark in both options which are:

Block images and other content in HTML emails
Show images and external content sent from emails in my Safe Senders list.

Now, go to the Safe Senders tab and enter any contacts that you consider safe. If you click the “Also trust e-mail from my Contacts” option, then messages with images from people in your contact list will come through without blocking.