getting strange spam

Frank Fusco

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Mountain Home, Arkansas
A while back, I boasted, mostly to Vaughn, that I did not receive spam when using a utilities software called Windows Washer. For the most part, that has been true. I don't know why it protects since it is not a true anti-virus/spam/etc. program. But, in my non-geek opinion, it does eliminate the pathways the bad guys use to invade computers.
However, in the past few weeks, I have been getting some very strange spam (?) invasions. I will get from one to three e-mail messages a day that look like advisories an e-mail I have sent failed to deliver. I looked at the first one using properties and message source. It looked like it could have been a virus. Definitely was not legit. I delete all without opening.
I do use AVG and Spy Bot S&D but these things still sneak through.
Unfortunate the bad guys do not put their talents to positive use.
I'm really [expletive deleted] over this.:(
 
Frank,

This may not necessarily have anything to do with your machine. We used to see a lot of this. Someone would get a "virus" (I use the term loosely), which would then send messages out 'apparently from' people in the infected machine's address book. This is why we stopped telling people "only open messages from people you know..." Often, it was exactly those messages that carried a payload. This is why I still don't do address books, even though most of those problems are behind us... ;)

Long story short: there's nothing to do about them, but they're safe to delete... ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
Frank,

This may not necessarily have anything to do with your machine. We used to see a lot of this. Someone would get a "virus" (I use the term loosely), which would then send messages out 'apparently from' people in the infected machine's address book. This is why we stopped telling people "only open messages from people you know..." Often, it was exactly those messages that carried a payload. This is why I still don't do address books, even though most of those problems are behind us... ;)

Long story short: there's nothing to do about them, but they're safe to delete... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

I'm very good at deleting. :D I figure if it is really something important, the sender will contact me one way or the other.
What I haven't done is set up my address book with a phony first name. e.g. aaa@aaaaa.net That is supposed to foil attempts to harvest my names. Dunno if it works. Supposed to.....
 
Another possibility Frank is that you have just been unlucky and the spam vermin have chosen to send a bunch of mail out with your email address or some close variant of it as the "from" address. Every now and again I get a couple of thousand "Unable to deliver" responses come to me because of this. Unfortunately , as a commercial decision, I can't super filter my email collection process so I just have to delete the nonsense at the server before I download it. So it may just be bad luck and random chance.
 
Thats why I use Mozilla Thunderbird. Enable the spam filtering give it a few weeks to get it trained and no more looking at spam.

For those of you who insist you can't do that because you run a business, well that just isn't so. Have it send the spam to its own folder and review it there. I had a few emails get sent to the spam folder early on. But it hasn't sent one that should have gotten to me in a long time. In fact I can't remember the last time it did mislabel a message. :D

Spam itself really isn't a virus. It may contain a virus, then again it may not. Frank your email addy may have been gleaned from some where you used it on the Internet. If it gets on to a spam list as good email your going to get tons of it.

I really do feel sorry sorry for those of you tied to a windows machine due to work.

For those of you who aren't tied to a windows machine due to work, but keep running windows when there are other options. I don't feel sorry for you.

If all you do is Internet, Email, photo editing, Music, video
Go Linux and kiss a ton of your problems good bye.

heres the top 100 Linux distros for you
http://distrowatch.com/

Any one can learn it, If I got my 67 year old farmer redneck brother using it, anyone can :D I'm talking about the same guy who can't master a tv remote :rofl:
 
Another possibility Frank is that you have just been unlucky and the spam vermin have chosen to send a bunch of mail out with your email address or some close variant of it as the "from" address. Every now and again I get a couple of thousand "Unable to deliver" responses come to me because of this. Unfortunately , as a commercial decision, I can't super filter my email collection process so I just have to delete the nonsense at the server before I download it. So it may just be bad luck and random chance.
I think Ian nailed it. Sure sounds like someone is spoofing your address as the return. Then when the receiving party's e-mail client or spam filter refuses the message, the bounce-back report ends up going to you, not the scumbags who really sent it. I've had the same things happen (but with a only few hundred at a time) with all of my personal domains at one time or another, as well as my "consumer" account on Verizon.

If this is the case, there's not really anything you did to cause it...just someone saw your e-mail address somewhere.
 
..For those of you who insist you can't do that because you run a business, well that just isn't so....

I'm sorry Robert but it is so, for me anyway. Ok - so the spam ends up in a folder marked "spam" I still have to look at it or risk losing another $1500 order because some people don't realise the importance of message titles. I suspect that there are few people who's feelings about spammers are less violent than mine but the simple truth is that the risk of losing even more money outweighs, for me, the annoyance of having to manually filter this dross.

See , that's the problem with the real world, there is no one size fits all solution.
 
Sounds like you've got good habits Frank. It is just that the bad guys find any nook or cranny to exploit. I delete anything I can't positivly identify without opening it. At work we use the ultimate weapon; only sender's that are in a manually created "approved" list can get through. All others are deleted on the fly.
 
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