At 09:34 AM 6/3/96 -0400, Konrad HINSEN wrote:
Yes, but if I do not send an email from netscape, the site should not be capable of seeing my configuration in my Netscape.ini file?! If it can do that, there is much more to worry about.
Indeed. But there is another possibility: Netscape could transmit the e-mail address from its configuration with every HTTP request. Not that this is a much more attractive alternative...
But then why show me that my address was caa1_p3.telepac.pt? and not my real address?
It must be something else. Otherwise instead of stating that my email address is caal_p3.telepac.pt, it should be capable of saying what my 'real' email address is. I have a feeling it is some type of WHOIS service.
Based on what information?
When I sign up with an internet provider, there is a file somewhere with the relevant info. Is there no way that that can be accessed? I like Pete Biggs' explaination, but I have never heard of such a thing (not that does mean much) and wouldn't I see something like: contacting host: mail.telepac.pt? Patrick ----- chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. Archived as: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To unsubscribe, send to listserver@ic.ac.uk the following message; unsubscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
Indeed. But there is another possibility: Netscape could transmit the e-mail address from its configuration with every HTTP request. Not that this is a much more attractive alternative...
But then why show me that my address was caa1_p3.telepac.pt? and not my real address?
But caa1_p3.telepac.pt is not a possible e-mail address; it's the name of a machine (equivalent to the internet address 194.65.16.3, according to my name server). Supposing that this is the machine from which your HTTP request originated, it is not surprising that the Web server knows it (all it takes is a call to a reverse name server).
When I sign up with an internet provider, there is a file somewhere with the relevant info. Is there no way that that can be accessed?
Possibly, but the structure of this file and the way to access it would presumably be different for each Internet provider. And then there are people (like me) who don't use any commercial provider. I can see no way how some program could deduce my e-mail address from a HTTP request, since I normally run Web browsers on a machine that is not configured for e-mail exchange with the outside world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Konrad Hinsen | E-Mail: hinsenk@ere.umontreal.ca Departement de chimie | Tel.: +1-514-343-6111 ext. 3953 Universite de Montreal | Fax: +1-514-343-7586 C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-Ville | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/Nederlands/ Montreal (QC) H3C 3J7 | Francais (phase experimentale) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. Archived as: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To unsubscribe, send to listserver@ic.ac.uk the following message; unsubscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
participants (2)
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hinsenkļ¼ ERE.UMontreal.CA
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Patrick van der Valk