Re: Image mode

[Richard Stallman]

    No it can't, but the fact that I've seen the extension and still want
    to open the image means that I'm willing to trust the image library to
    display this file,

Not necessarily.  You might not even know what an image library is.
The only conclusion we can reliably draw is that you trust display of
the image.

                       perhaps because I have my antivirus program set to
    scan all .jpg files whenever they are opened, for example.

That is one possible reason, but there are others. c perhaps because
it never occurred to you to distrust this, or distrust anything that
seems natural to do in your computer, because you are a beginning user
and don't know about such things.

All in all, I don't see that this argument leads to a conclusion that
a decision can rest on.