phishing emails

[STYMA, ROBERT E (ROBERT)]

> > >
> > There are a bunch of ways to collect emails.  In some cases, just
> > visiting a site can expose your email address. 
> 
> Pardon my flame (or my ignorance?)... but how would "just visiting a
> site" expose your email address??
> 
In HTML you can imbed images.  The imbedded image path can be
a URL.  If you make the URL start with FTP: instead of HTTP:
the browser will use anonymous FTP to load the file.  The default
in some browsers for the FTP: URL's is to use userid anonymous and
password equal to your email address.  The site just collects the
passwords which are email addresses.

Robert E. Styma
Principal Engineer (DMTS)
Lucent Technologies, Phoenix
Email: stymar at lucent.com / styma at swlink.net
Phone: 623-582-7323
Company:  http://www.lucent.com
Personal: http://www.swlink.net/~styma