well, now what...

[Tony Payne]

Went to check my email, 100+ failure messages...



Finally someone went and used my address in a spam campaign... this is not the usual virus type of autoresends... this is intentional.



I'm tired of crap.



Yes, I use my "real" email address all the time... yeah, I know it's just asking for stuff to be sent to me... but to spoof me as the sender? what good does that do?



Guess it's time to close my address... unless the rejects slow down to a reasonable crawl, or I can figure out a way to filter them...



Days gone by, internet email was a respected thing, now it's just crap.



sorry for the rant, but...sometimes ya gotta.

 

[Bruce Yeaton]

sim, I've run into the same thing. What's really helped is Norton's Internet Security, cut my spam by 90% easy. May want to take a look at it.

 

[Jim B]

Sim, are you getting spam in your inbox or are people you know getting spam with your email addy as the sender? If its the latter you may well have a virus, there have been some 5 new mass mailer viruses in the past couple weeks alone that have been a thorn in my side at work.

 

[Tom Major]

I have had the same address for over 8 years now with Hotmail. I very seldom get spam and I have NEVER gotten a virus using e-mail. My wife had an address thru Outlook from our cable company and It only took a couple of weeks before our computer was unusable. In eight years Hotmail has been free and safe. There are a few places that won't let you use a Hotmail address. Those are the companies I DON'T do business with. I assume that they can't sell e-mail lists with Hotmail addresses due to the security of Hotmail.

 

[Tony Payne]

Jim...



It appears that my email is being used to send messages...and not from my machine...I'm just recieving the "failures"... these emials are the "pre-approived mortgage" spam, with other "reply-to" headers...



IOW, I don't think its a virus. Most of them resend themselves, and only to people in your address book... my Eudora client doesn't even "have" an address book... (it's empty)



I'm re-running virus checkers now... but I am fairly sure this is completly external to my machine.

 

[Carl Meyer]

In today's computer enviornment you need to educate yourself and take safety measures, learn how to use firewalls, virus protection, and spyware removal software. If you don't take the time to learn and use these tools effectively, know that you are at risk and will have spend alot more time later trying to repair the problems.

 

[Tony Payne]

well, as suspected...



Newest virus defs, full scan, no viruses on my end...



I have a firewall (hardware, not software)... I deny about 95% of the spam before it ever get's to the house.



Don't kid yourselves, the best "protection" out there won't prevent the unscrupulous from forging email headers.



I just hate to feel like I have to have multiple accounts in order to be "safe" from idiots.



You can't forge my physical return address on "snail mail"... it's a crime...

 

[Michael Snow]

oncearacer... the problem with hotmail addresses is that they're so fluid. Anyone can sign up for as many accts as they want. This is problematic on a forum where ONLY private messaging is enabled so that the system sends a message to the subscribed email address when a private message is sent to a user. This keeps the email addresses private, but does no good if a person uses a hotmail acct and then never opens it again or closes it down immediately.

 

[Staci Matheis]

Simmy -



I just went to the "primary" address for my AOL account. It's a screen name I no longer use but, since it was my original AOL account name, they insist I keep it.



In some way it also seems to serve as a catch all for junk mail.



Although I almost never go there, I do on ocassion to see if someone may have sent an e-mail there that I don't want to miss..... I, too, had many returned mailings.....



Do you suppose this has anything to do with the one spam we all received recently.............?



me

 

[Larry Harp]

Came across an interesting article on the subject of Spam and the efforts to stop it.



Harpo
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5316964.html