search  current discussion  categories  technology - internet 

e-mail imposters??

updated sun 25 aug 02

 

Autumn Downey on thu 22 aug 02


Hello everyone,

I received a returned message from Clayart for something that I didn't
send. It seemed to be an attachment and was either a virus or some form of
spam. Norton doesn't turn up any viruses on my system, nor has anyone
complained to me of receiving anything from me.

But, in the loads of spam I get, I have seen messages coming to me that
have my address as the sender as well as the recipient. So, I'm wondering
if there's some new form of annoying spamming going on. (I think there was
another instance when something came back that I hadn't sent, but I didn't
check it out particularly).

It seems that when some of us first joined Clayart a few years ago, our
names got "harvested" and resold many times over.

Am sending the header info separately to Mel to see if he and the Acers
people can figure out what happened here.

Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this "phenomenon" - a kind
word for it!

Autumn Downey

vince pitelka on thu 22 aug 02


Autumn -
This has been going on for a year or so now, and was discussed recently on
Clayart. Most of the email viruses that have appeared over the last few
years reproduce themselves and send themselves out to addresses harvested
from your inbox. The Klez virus which is currently active is especially
insidious in that it also inserts these randomly harvested addresses as
return addresses. So, if you receive a message contaminated with the Klez
virus, there is very little chance that it actually came from the person
who's return address is on the message. It makes it especialy hard to track
the virus's origins. And if a Klez-contaminated message is returned, it
goes to return email address, even though that is not the person who
actually sent the message. The contaminated return messages you received
originated from some computer that just happened to have your email address
on a message in the in-box.

I am currently on AT&T, and it filters out Klez, but on my TTU email account
I still get several Klez-contaminated messages every day. As you probably
know, most of this new generation of viruses will contaminate your computer
if you just read the message in the Outlook Express preview pane. You do
not have to open the attachment. I always open my email with the preview
pane turned off, and delete any suspicious messages.
Good luck -
- Vince

Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Home - vpitelka@worldnet.att.net
615/597-5376
Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
http://www.craftcenter.tntech.edu/

Steve Mills on sat 24 aug 02


I get this quite a lot recently. The mail software I use has a facility
for rejecting mail as undeliverable, and recently I've got a number of
mails I've rejected back as being undeliverable to me!!!! It seems to be
a way for spammers to avoid the consequences of their own actions alas.

Steve
Bath
UK



In message , Autumn Downey writes
>Hello everyone,
>
>I received a returned message from Clayart for something that I didn't
>send. It seemed to be an attachment and was either a virus or some form =
>of
>spam. Norton doesn't turn up any viruses on my system, nor has anyone
>complained to me of receiving anything from me.
>
>But, in the loads of spam I get, I have seen messages coming to me that
>have my address as the sender as well as the recipient. So, I'm wonderi=
>ng
>if there's some new form of annoying spamming going on. (I think there w=
>as
>another instance when something came back that I hadn't sent, but I didn'=
>t
>check it out particularly).
>
>It seems that when some of us first joined Clayart a few years ago, our
>names got "harvested" and resold many times over.
>
>Am sending the header info separately to Mel to see if he and the Acers
>people can figure out what happened here.
>
>Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this "phenomenon" - a kind
>word for it!
>
>Autumn Downey

--
Steve Mills
Bath
UK