Hijacked email address

[Wing Commander Fowler]

Hello chaps,

I've always had a penchant for spam - or that would seem to be the opinion of the various spamwinkers out there but in the last cuppla days I've begun to be cluster bombed with a new style of em!

My address is an "@excelairways.freeserve.co.uk" format and my inbox is full of returned emails I never sent and they are being returned to bizarre @'s before the excelairways portion of my address....... Used to get the odd one to my REAL email address that I never sent but never these fake ones?

There's obviously some form of mailer worm or other that creates these BUT is it on my system anywhere ( I have uptodate macafee tho no spam killer on it) or is it in freeserve?

Is there anything at all I can do about it or is that email address winked now! Time to move on again???

Heeeeellllppppp!!!!!

[BLUE SKY THINKER]

Wing Commander Fowler.....

What-ho!

This is a fairly common snag that comes up regularly on the 'e-mail problems' front; bit limited on time at the moment to dive into the web and refresh my memory on what it's all about. ...Instead, if you are thinking of a "move on again", might I suggest making a clean sweep and purchasing a domain name?. ...Only a couple of quid a year.

Rightly or wrongly, someone suggested to me a year or so ago that one is far less susceptible to spam with such, unlike any address with 'freeserve' or 'aol' (for example) in it.

e.g.: (name)@wingcommanderfowler.co.uk. ...Only personal opinion, but I think a 'dot net' address is better for pure e-mail: (name)@wingcommanderfowler.net

I can honestly say I have had less than half a dozen bits of spam since inception in February (unlike the previous blitz on AOL); and that is with the spam filter that comes with the running of it, off.

By 'running it' I mean using a reputable firm like 1&1 (http://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/Mail;jsessionid=E9E362456D7330D71829CF15C73A8B5F.TC30a?__fra me=_top&__lf=Static) to purchase your domain name and then running your mail (69p per month!) through their Pop 3/SMTP servers irrespective of your ISP. ...Everything is scanned also for viruses well back in the system, before it gets to you.

Only a suggestion; worked for me. ...Another 'plus' is the fact that once you have a domain name you can change your ISP as many times as you like, without the bother of changing your e-mail address.

[Wing Commander Fowler]

Thanx Bluey - that sounds like a fine idea. Had thought a little about it before since I'm having problems using pop3 facilities on an unsecured wireless network I may allegedly have occasionally linked into. Could be the solution to all my woes! The time is nigh!

Again many thanx for yr time. :ok:

[Memetic]

It is likley that these emails are, as you say generated by a virus or a worm. However it is at least as likley to be on someone else's machine as yours. i.e. anyone whom you have emailed in the past and hence who's PC "knows" your email address or your subdomain which a bit of malware uses as a "seed" to generate email addresses to mail to, and to fake from addresses.

Check your machine with another antivirus programme just to be sure.

[Keef]

Know it well (sigh). I have three domains registered to me, and all three are blessed with spam being sent using them as the forged origin.

What happens is that someone with your address gets a virus; their address book finds its way into various spamlists and you start to get spam.

Then, a spammer decides to pick your domain as his forged origin, and attaches all sorts of imaginative bits in front of the @ - I get stuff bounced back to [email protected] as well as to [email protected].

There's not a lot you can do about it, other than treat yourself to a spamcop account and route all your mail through it.

[BLUE SKY THINKER]

That's my "get a domain name" theory out of the window then (!!!); obviously just been lucky.

[stickyb]

Wing Commander: it is more than likely to be somebody who knows your address and has been infected with a virus.
You might be able to track down who it is by examining the routing info in the email, then you can contact who ever it is and tell them they have an infection.

[Wing Commander Fowler]

Thanx stickyb - any idea how to achieve this though since everything appears to originate from my non existent email address.....? Remember - all I'm getting is the returns from various postmasters!:confused:

[stickyb]

Depends on the mailer program, but some of the reurned messages may contain what seems like a load of garbage with "received from 217.213.123.211" repeated.
If you have any of those, pm me with them and i'll see if there is anything i can decode for you

[HowlingWind]

Check out www.mailblocks.com. It's a filtering service that uses a challenge system to validate e-mail...that is, if someone is not in your address book, the system sends them a message they must respond to. If they respond, the message goes through and the sender is added to your address book so they don't have to do that again. Since most spam is automated, there isn't a response and those messages stay in the bin for a few days before being deleted (configurable retention period).

Coupled with your own domain (which I have), you can have your mail automatically routed to Mailblocks, faster than the standard method whereby they periodically check your inbox. The system also features "Trackers," which let you set up disposable e-mail addresses for online registration and other purposes. They have a handy web interface but will also allow you to use regular e-mail clients like Outlook, as long as they can handle IMAP mailboxes.

[Wing Commander Fowler]

Thanx stickyb - I'll take a look and try to find some commonality. Take me a few days cos am just leavin for work.

Howling - will look into that but as most of my new spam is from postmasters as returned mail does the mailblocker block THAT too? Does that mean I'll lose any REAL undeliverable messages when I get a mailblocker? That would be a small issue I guess.....

[HowlingWind]

Wing Commander Fowler, I suspect that Mailblocks will send a challenge message to the postmaster as it would to any sender not in your address book. The postmaster may or may not choose to respond and let the message through. In that case, or in the case of any other legitimate message for which the sender does not respond to the challenge (such as an automated message from a legitimate vendor), you will be able to find the message in the "Pending" folder on the Mailblocks server.

Messages for which challenges have been issued are held in the Pending folder until the sender responds; the user moves them to the inbox (at which time the sender is added to the address list); or they are deleted by the user or the system.

The amount of time messages are held in "limbo" in the Pending folder is configurable, but I believe the default is five days or so. They are then automatically deleted. When I first migrated to the system, I checked the Pending folder once a day or once every other day to make sure nothing legimate slipped through. Gradually, that became once a week, then once a month or so. After having used it for a year now, I rarely check it all.

I might add that even if a pesky spammer (or anyone else you don't wish to communicate with) does respond to the challenge and winds up in your address book, it's an easy matter to have future messages from them permanently blocked.

[HowlingWind]

As a postscript to the above, it is with sadness and regret that I announce that Mailblocks will cease operations on 16th November. It seems the miserable gits at AOL (who bought Mailblocks) have dumped it. They are offering their AIM service as a replacement. This is a truly inferior product that lacks Mailblocks' challenge/response system and customisable trackers. I shall be asking for a refund, which is an option to paid users.

I have done some research into replacing this valuable service, and have run across the following.

Bluebottle -- www.bluebottle.com -- From Australia. Free, touts a challenge/response system but in my testing it didn't seem to work.

Mail-Block -- www.mail-block.com -- A paid challenge/response service, with a clunky interface. Not happy with it, will be requesting a refund.

Spam Arrest -- www.spamarrest.com -- the one I finally settled on. Includes not only challenge/response but trackers. They offer a 30-day free trial, but you must upgrade to a paid account before you can upload your address book into their approved senders list.