what is this strange link

[Dazed_75]

Joe,
Given what I found below, it does not seem worth the effort especially since
it would have to have an email account to send it to or I cloned the email
files and installed Thunderbird there.

Joseph,
Good idea.  Turns out that text only occurs in the link itself.  I even
tried searching for a few substrings from it.

Lisa,
Gulp! Umm, OK.  Clicking on it (a bit less worrisome since I am in linux)
popped up a dialog box entitled External Protocol Request which contained a
question mark in a chat bubble followed by the text:

An external application must be launched to handle about: links.
>
> Requested link:
>
> about:blank
>
> Application: <Unknown>
>
> If you were not expecting this request it may be an attempt to exploit a
> weakness in that
> other program. Cancel this request unless you are sure it is not malicious.
>
> |_| Remember my choice for all links of this type.
>

with buttons for Cancel and Launch Application.

So I am thinking there might have been some potential malware attached at
some point but somewhere, somehow, something stripped it off.


On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 1:56 AM, Lisa Kachold <lisakachold at obnosis.com>wrote:

> I doubt this is a spambot.  SportdocPC is not a known spam bot or spam
> infection from malware.
>
> I imagine this is just an imbedded HTML message inclusion footer.
>
> Be brave!  Click on it and see?
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 6:49 PM, Joseph Sinclair <
> plug-discussion at stcaz.net> wrote:
>
>> If you view the source of the message (it'll be pure ASCII) you should be
>> able to search for the attachment boundary for
>> 82E5A786026D48CFB93EDE028A88F0EB, and see what MIME type it is (or claims to
>> be).
>> My guess is that it's an HTML or image attachment containing a bogus
>> advertisement (considering SportdocPC is a spam tag).  Quite possibly, your
>> friend is using a spam-supported program of some sort (many "fun desktop
>> widget" programs are in this category) or is infected with a spambot.
>>
>> Dazed_75 wrote:
>> > I appreciate the info but I'm not sure it explains anything.  My
>> suspicion
>> > is that it might be a link to some embedded malware or something nasty.
>>  The
>> > fact that hovering the mouse over the link shows the resolution to be
>> > "about:blank" and that there was an image attached to the email make me
>> > wonder if it might point to something embedded in the image that
>> purports to
>> > be the "about:blank" page but also contains some kind of malware.
>> >
>> > I did not want to click on it even though I was on linux.  I did want to
>> try
>> > to figure it out in case I should let my friend know about it (he runs
>> > windows).  I have no idea how to figure that out.
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 3:22 PM, James Finstrom <
>> > jfinstrom at rhinoequipment.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>    The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) schemes, "cid:" and "mid:" allow
>> >>    references to messages and the body parts of messages.  For example,
>> >>    within a single multipart message, one HTML body part might include
>> >>    embedded references to other parts of the same message.
>> >>
>> >> http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2111.txt
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Dazed_75 <lthielster at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Got an email from a friend.  It includes a link that looks strange and
>> >>> seems to have no place in the context of the email.  Hovering the
>> cursor
>> >>> over it seems to show that it resolves to "about:blank".  Here is is
>> with
>> >>> some spaces inserted to make it not be active:
>> >>>
>> >>> cid : 82 E5A786026D48CFB93EDE028A88F0EB @ SportdocPC
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Anyone know?
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>> Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry
>> >>>
>> >>> The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain
>> >>> occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.
>> >>>   - Thomas Jefferson
>> >>>
>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>
>
> Office: (480)307-8712
> AT&T: (503)754-4452
>
> "The war of good and evil present in all religions does not always end, in
> every faith, with the victory of good, but in every one it establishes a
> clear order of existence. The sacred as well as the profane rests on that
> universal order.."
> --Stanislav Lem
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>



-- 
Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions,
that I wish it always to be kept alive.
  - Thomas Jefferson
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/pipermail/plug-discuss/attachments/20100722/724ecbfc/attachment.html>