E-mail

[woodygap 0]

I finally received one of those spam e-mails that has the appearance of being sent from me to me. I have read here on the forums many times about this happening but can't seem to find the correct search terms to find the solution. It looks to this layman to have originated from Redmond, WA. I could be mistaken though. Here's the header if anyone can decipher any usable info.

 

Return-path: <mike@****>

Envelope-to: mike@****

Delivery-date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 14:49:05 -0400

Received: from [24.36.42.50] (helo=d36-42-50.home1.myprovider.net)

by server97.totalchoicehosting.com with smtp (Exim 4.44)

id 1ECiVF-0007uL-OX

for mike@****; Tue, 06 Sep 2005 14:49:05 -0400

Received: from localhost.localdomain (HELO localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])

by catawba.care2.com (Mostfix) with ESMTP id BAD0153BFF

for <mike@****>; Tue, 06 Sep 2005 12:44:28 +0500

Message-Id: <200309010816.06350.valley@canada.com>

Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 08:41:28 +0100

From: "mike@****" <mike@****>

To: mike@****

Subject: BREAKING NEWS: Microsoft CEO Vows to "KILL" Google

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13

X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.3

X-NAS-Bayes: #0: 5.20064E-198; #1: 1

X-NAS-Classification: 0

X-NAS-MessageID: 4496

X-NAS-Validation: {81968E2F-8E64-4C01-B9A6-72BEECC86F82}

End of Header

 

Any ideas what steps I should take to prevent this in the future? I do have my default address set to fail.

 

Thanks, Mike

 

 

Edit: TCH-Bruce - removed email address and other sensitive user data

[TCH-Bruce 16]

First step: Don't post your actual email address publicly!

[woodygap 0]

Ooops. Thanks for the edit brother Bruce!

[TCH-Bruce 16]

Since the email was addressed to your actual email address the only way to prevent getting it is to filter it by subject.

[Prel 0]

Persons with bad intention can catch its and-mail for send spam.

My suggestion: Use for example xxx@xxx.com

Edited September 6, 2005 by paulo

[stevevan 0]

Welcome to the reality of the web. Filters would be a good start. There have been many other options discussed in the forums that you could review also.

[Deverill 0]

There is no real way to totally stop them. If I know or can guess your email address I can fake an email coming from you... it's very easy to do.

 

One thing you may do if it fits into your needs is to use a non-obvious name. "Mike" could be easily guessed - they may be sending it to mike, dave, bill, fred, susie, etc @ whatever domain they can find that exists.

 

In the mid-ish 1900's when Unix was starting to become popular in universities some guys tried to hack into several systems. They found that

The authors made a survey of several dozen local machines, using as trial passwords a collection of the 20 most common female first names, each followed by a single digit. The total number of passwords tried was, therefore, 200. At least one of these 200 passwords turned out to be a valid password on every machine surveyed.

By the way, one of the "authors" was the father of the punk-kid Robert T Morris that released the first publicized worm in 1988 that wrecked havoc.

 

In other words, don't be predictable in any way and you'll have a better chance of avoiding the jerks out there spamming.