# Email Properties - Virus Open Door?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-properties-virus-open-door/182574>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 17, 2003, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-properties-virus-open-door/182574 "2003-06-17T23:28:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tcdaniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@tcdaniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tcdaniel)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-properties-virus-open-door/182574/1 "2003-06-17T23:28:04Z")

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Is it safer if I examine the properties of email from an unknown sender to get an idea of the content - as opposed to opening up Pandora’s Box and letting the virus or worm out?

Thanks for any help here.

tcd

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-properties-virus-open-door/182574/2 "2003-06-17T23:43:06Z")

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Opening an email, even from and unknown sender is perfectly safe IF you have HTML turned off and just view it as plaintext, which I do, using Outlook Express. Most web-based email services, such as hotmail won’t allow dangerous javascript or Active-X components to run, so you should be ok there, too. However, since they do view the HTML, there might be a buried webbug that confirms for the spammer that your email address is valid. Attachments should never be opened unless you know exactly what it is and who it is from.