BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself

Subject: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: GUEST,JHW member in Yarm library today
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 07:30 AM

I've just found 9 assorted rubbish emails in my Bulk/Junk box all of who's SENDER address is my own. I've flogged through screens of help at Yahoo, failed to send them a message, failed to get a whois site to work. I've deleted the messages as usual but wondered what risk there is here and what should I be doing?

(My own computer at home remains inoperable)

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 07:44 AM

I've had this for years. Another trick they use is to have your address as the originating addy, thus the 'bounce' comes 'back' to you. There seems little point in trying to contact the 'bouncer', as there is nothing they can do except block you, and there is even the possibility that the 'bounce message' may even be fake, waiting for you to respond, proving that your addy is alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 08:11 AM

This happened to me once at work. I contacted my IT department and they said there was nothing they could practically do. I got a huge number of these messages over a few days and then nothing more.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 08:14 AM

I had one to [e-mail] with the supposed e-mail in question as an attachment. If it was not for Norton I would have fallen for it, the offending item's name was full of spaces and double extensions. Had it not been in quarrantine I would have opened. Confusion reigns - they don't know there isn't, but hope there is, a legion of idiots working for me who would just pile in.
I nearly did even though I am my postmaster.

Now my ISP just dumps the e-mails that are not on my list of active ones so they have no way of knowing if the e-mail is active or not.
Another fight back is to list a few e-mails on my website - like [e-mail] - they get the idea I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 08:40 AM

THese are likely from someone whose system has been compromised by a trojan which is spoofing the "From" field. If so - -

Google how to get at the headers, and then go down the headers nearly to the end and you will see the real sender.

If they are traceable, phone them.

I had a spate of stupid similar stuff purporting to come from a firm of lawyers in the West Country, and their sysop and I tracked it down to a licensed conveyancer in North London who was tearing his hair out because his email was up the shoot - and it was all the trojan's fault.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 09:06 AM

That was my thought Richard.

XG

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 09:38 AM

a few years back our office library address was the "sender" of lotsa' emails with Russian subjects!

Nov last year similar happened with an info@ webmail address I use for a committee I'm on - I almost freaked when I saw zillions of bounces in the Intray & our webmaster spent a few days cleaning up the mess as they kept flooding in. He found the originating address & sent an email to that ISP's abuse address, probably with no result, but we both felt better after the flood stopped, tho I was worried about our innocent address being considered to be a spammer.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 10:18 AM

THis is classic deflection, psychologically speaking, in which the perpetrator of harmful communications works hard to appear innocent and insist the trouble is all coming from "that guy". Human foibles writ large in the machine.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 10:25 AM

I got one of those on Sunday...said my wife was sending me a personal greeting or some such. The joke is on them. My wife never uses the (a)computer. Hit Delete.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Stu
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 10:51 AM

I'm suffering from this at my business address, and as I'm a freelancer am not too chuffed that I appear to be sending the world Viagra offers and pictures of Angelina Jolie's tits.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: JHW
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 02:40 PM

Many thanks to all - (the old laptop at home has decided to work for once tonight but the screen could go black at any time!)
And thanks to Mudcat of course, much more effective than FAqs at Yahoo though their filtering is handy.
Cheers, John

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 03:07 PM

There's some new stuff going out now....all kinds of stupid messages supposedly about some unlikely scandal or emergency involving Obama, McCaine, or members of their families. The Angelina Jolie phase, however, seems to be fading off rapidly. That means they've caught all the suckers they can by now with that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Melissa
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 05:10 PM

I ended up blocking my own address today..I've had a surge of stupid subject emails supposedly from me, so I'm taking a break from that.

What are they FOR?
Is the trick supposed to come when I click on the 'unsubscribe' button?

All the messages seem to be the same "you are being sent this message because you subscribed to...blah blah blah"

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 05:19 PM

Don't unsubscribe to anything you didn't sign up for in the first place. All you are doing is confirming your existence to the spammers.
IF IN ANY DOUBT< DELETE

XG

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Melissa
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 06:24 PM

that's what I thought..unsubscribing looked like a trick.

What are the emails FOR though?
Does somebody gain something by sending them..?

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 07:51 PM

I just posted the following on the Facebook thread & it reminded me of another strange email.

...........................
Cyber criminals target Facebook users Facebook has been infiltrated by Nigerian scammers and other cyber criminals who use compromised accounts to con users out of cash.

Now that even non-tech savvy internet users know not to respond to, or click on links in, emails from strangers, online thieves have turned to social networks and are finding it is easier to trick people when posing as their friends.
............................

Last year one of my friends "sent" a similar email to everyone in her address book using her new gmail account, telling them a relative was stuck in Africa & needed money to get home. From what I remember the email was very apologetic about bothering us, & as everyone knew she was retired, could have led to folks automatically sending money to help out. Fortunately her friends just replied to her, & alerted her to the problem. She no longer uses that address

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 07:54 AM

The cost of sending spam is so low that the hit rate only has to be of the order of one in a million.

If they paid for the sending, it would sort out the mess. But the system is set, the genie is out of the bottle.

I don't get spam theses days with one exception, and that address is being pensioned-off soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 08:00 AM

Thanks for the advice in this thread. I recently got into the same situation of recieving lots of spam apparently from myself. It is a shame that Yahoo doesn't have a facility to send examples to some location that would encourage them to track down the senders.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: SussexCarole
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 04:30 PM

I have two e mail addresses and both have been hit! I am sending myself spam almost hourly on the yahoo account & aol is just slightly more infrequent. Oh well...if ever I have problems with my 'dick' or my 'wife' I know where to go for advice!   How do I get rid of it?

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: JHW
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 08:19 PM

I'm not sure whether its just me who is getting messages pretending to be from me or if others are getting it too. I have found though as noted by others above that there is a claim that the messages come from some organisation, probably fictitious as even misspelt that they allege I have signed up to. Also a very realistic looking message pretending to come from Amazon yesterday asking to confirm a/c details. I don't have one.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 08:47 PM

I get lots of Spam from [e-mail], possibly because it's an openly published address. I send it to the "junk" bin, but then I wonder it this is classifying joe@mudcat as a spammer.
I get very little Spam from addresses that appear to be people I know, although I do get occasional viruses attached to e-mail purporting to be from people I know.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 08:33 AM

Some of the "spam from yourself" appear to be from somewhere called Sund Design. However the owner of Sund claims that the emails are not coming from his company. He claims he has tracked the IP chain down to a Phone company in China and handed of the problem to the FBI!

I was able to use WHOIS to track one of mine through Amsterdam/Seville/Austria/Hungary before the chain broke, so it looks unlikely that it was originating in the USA. Maybe we should petition all the major ISPs to levy a posting charge on anyone who send more than say 20 emails a day?

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Stu
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 09:32 AM

"Maybe we should petition all the major ISPs to levy a posting charge on anyone who send more than say 20 emails a day?"

Excellent - as a sole trader I should have to pay more to send emails. No siree.

Subject: RE: BS: Spam mail pretending to come from myself
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 11:05 AM

"if ever I have problems with my 'dick' or my 'wife' I know where to go for advice!   How do I get rid of it?"

Which? Your dick...or your wife? The first is fairly easy...just employ a miniature guillotine. The second is quite difficult and costly.