An attachment is added to the end of the file as a mime encoded string. It is as much a part of the e-mail as the main text or any "embedded" image. Outlook or a.n.other mailer just recognises the string that delimits the text and the embedded files or attachments and treats them accordingly. You can see this if you use an old e-mail application that does not see attachments and will just see asci text all the way through. Some applications will enable you to view source, which reveals their true nature. When I first used VMS mail before the web, I had to cut out the attachments using a text processor (Edit) and pass them through an interpreter such as UUDECODE to get the jpeg or other file then load this into a viewer for that type of file. It has been a recent development that all this was done for you. Chris. -----Original Message----- From: owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of WRGill@xxxxxxx Sent: 31 May 2004 04:21 To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students Subject: What I found out from an AOL Host, WR. In a message dated 5/30/2004 5:55:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time, PhotoRoy6@xxxxxxx writes: In a message dated 5/30/04 9:48:27 PM, WRGill writes: So the question becomes; does the AOL service see the embedded image as an atttached file or not? If it sees it as an attached file we (at least at AOL) are ok. "AOL now automatically scans every e-mail attachment you send or receive for viruses, worms and Trojan horses. This service is free and does not require you to upgrade or download any software -- AOL does it all for you. The scanning takes place on all versions of AOL software on both PC and Mac." Dear WRGill, This news I had not heard of, but this is good to know. The reason they're scanning attachments is the same thing virus software does on your own computer when you insert a floppy disk or other disk; it scans it looking for any nasties that are harmfull. Be happy they're doing this. I can't receive embedded images most of the time. I think it's a problem of the older aol version I'm using on the Mac, so I can only receive attachments. Viruses can't be in the body of an email anyway; they have to be an attachment usually of an executable file or like a macro attached to Microsoft Word file. The nice thing is most all Mac's won't run an executable file. Most viruses are written for PC Windows machines anyway. Mac users have better things to do than write viruses, lol. Anyway, thanks for your note and hope this info helps too. Host Nikon
