[plug] email message formats

[Bret Busby]

Christian wrote:
> 

> > If a cookie can identify a visitor to a website, and, result in the
> > visitor being sent unsolicited email from various sources, one of which
> > emails happens to contain malicious code, is that not a security
> > violation?
> >
> 
> The cookie will not result in you getting spammed.  You obviously have
> NO idea how cookies work.

If a cookie can identify a person, and, the website happens to be able
to link the person's identity to the person's email address, can the
email address of a person not be found, via the use of cookies? If the
email address of a person can be found, can spam not result from that?

As an example, Murdoch University, which uses cookies to identify people
who log in to some of its facilities (eg, exam results), and, which also
knows email addresses of the people who have login access, could fit
into this scenario. Whether or not Murdoch University would be likely to
spam people, who access their exam results, or, be used by external
parties (whether or not with the university's consent - eg, if the
university's security is breached), to result in spam being sent to
people who use such facilities, may be a matter of conjecture, but, it
is a possibility that should not be discounted.

To make the statement "You obviously have NO idea how cookies work.",
sounds to me to be a bit bigoted (bigoted - "unreasonably prejudiced and
intolerant" - Concise Oxford Dictionary, 8th Edition, 1990).

-- 

Bret Busby

......................................
"So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the
answer means."
 - Deep Thought, Chapter 28 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
 - Douglas Adams, 1988 
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