>As a general rule it's a good idea to avoid looking at any messages you might suspect are spam.
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>Most spams are HTML; when you view them your browser is invoked behind the scenes to render the message. To do so it goes out to the web site of the spammer to download images etc. The spammer's site almost certainly records the IP addresses of any computer that downloads its images. If the spammer has any sort of cross-reference between IP addresses and e-mail addresses, now she knows you're a "live" one and will spam you all the more.
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>Previously it used to be possible to put script code on a Web site that would automatically harvest the default e-mail address of anyone who visited the site. I don't know if that's still possible, maybe browser security has been tightened since then. Nevertheless I recommend that people turn off message preview in their e-mail program. That way you can delete the obvious spams without them being rendered by your browser, with the issues listed above.
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Thanks, Al. Damn curiosity! Someday it will get me into trouble...