Question about spam

S

Sharon Bowman

Sharon Bowman
Lately, I have received some number of spam e-mails with the sender's address as my own e-mail address. Of course, this is disconcerting, as I am not customarily in the business of selling viagra or pornography.

How did this happen? Is there anything I can do about it?

I must say that so far, no irate spam victims have written to me to denounce my supposed practices.
 
I've been receiving similar missives as well. Unfortunately, they're not for products I'd use, otherwise I'd be happy to accept samples and, if I like the product, become a celebrity endorser. Since I've had no messages of spam-condemnation sent my way, I presume that whatever is being spewed under my name is being caught up in other recipients' spam filters and everyone is living happily ever after.

-Eden (intrigued by the electronic possibilities of borrowing an additional persona)
 
Two possible explanations that occur to this non-expert. The most likely is that the spam spoofs the "sent by" line to implicate you. But I do recall cases where a friend's computer had been seized by a virus and was churning through the address book, sending out spam, some with her address. You could tell by the high frequency of NYC ITB wine email addresses involved. It got fixed in the end.
 
As a first-line defense, try running the usual (fullly updated) anti-virus/anti-malware suite of scanners and fixits and see if anything turns up. If not, it's almost certainly the first thing Joe mentioned, especially if no one else is receiving spam with your address in the headers.

Other possibilities are really, really remote, unless you're using some sort of fly-by-night service provider.
 
Two addenda:

I use a Mac.

Service provider is French.

I think it has to do with something related to my blog, probably. I had never, ever received a piece of spam until about a year ago, I added my e-mail address to my blog since no one could contact me directly. But, old-fashioned dolt that I was, I typed the address with @ sign and all, no spaces. Thereafter, I have been receiving offers for casinos and pills and whatnot.

But a month ago, more sinisterly, I did start to receive spam from my supposed address.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Two addenda:

I use a Mac.

Service provider is French.

I think it has to do with something related to my blog, probably. I had never, ever received a piece of spam until about a year ago, I added my e-mail address to my blog since no one could contact me directly. But, old-fashioned dolt that I was, I typed the address with @ sign and all, no spaces. Thereafter, I have been receiving offers for casinos and pills and whatnot.

But a month ago, more sinisterly, I did start to receive spam from my supposed address.
Click to expand...

Sharon,
If they're harvesting your email addy for the To: field, they can easily supply it to the From: field as well. Post or email me the full headers to one of the spam messages and I'll tell you whether it came from your computer or not.

Mark Lipton
 
I just went through my spam filter (which I'm not very consistent about doing), and I have a zillion messages from myself on all sorts of pharmaceutical and sexual performance subjects that I can't quite recall having sent.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Two addenda:

I use a Mac.

Service provider is French.

I think it has to do with something related to my blog, probably. I had never, ever received a piece of spam until about a year ago, I added my e-mail address to my blog since no one could contact me directly. But, old-fashioned dolt that I was, I typed the address with @ sign and all, no spaces. Thereafter, I have been receiving offers for casinos and pills and whatnot.

But a month ago, more sinisterly, I did start to receive spam from my supposed address.
Click to expand...
Isn't this about when you started frequenting this Board??

But seriously, whatever appears in the From field on an Email doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the actual sender. This address spoofing seems to be common, and apparently it is also common to forge the Email of the recipient as the sender. Viagra ads are the big offenders..
 
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