Need help with Spam Issue

Some spammer is using my email address and I'm getting 4 or 5 "undeliverable" messages per day from different Mail-Daemons all over the world.

I know it's not a virus on my system because:
a) I'm clean according to newest definitions and scans from both macafee and Norton
and b) the addresses the mails were originally sent to aren't in my address book or anywhere else on my PC.

My provider says it's fairly easy to fake a mail address, said thier hands are tied and they can't do anything to stop it.

Anyhow, excepting a mail to Sivadrake, I haven't sent a mail to anyone here in the last two weeks. If you got one, send it to me. It might help to track him down.

Any experience here with this sort of annoyance and how to deal with it?

Edit: Doh! issue resolved. It's apparently not a human spammer but a function in the new MyDoom virus that uses the adresses in the infected systems email address book to fake the senders name in the mails it sends out.
i.e some of the people who have my email address in their address book are infected with the virus.
/Edit

Have Gun, Will Travel

aha - and now we are at some special point:

this damn address book[}]

Everybody seems to collect as many as possible addresses in his address book. It's so comfortable to address an e-mail with one klick.
That's a pefect base for any trojan or worm or what else.
Is it so difficult to alter the addresses with some numbers or signs to make them invalid for a trojan?
They won't be able to spread around the world.
If you want to send a real message then just delete the numbers or signs and the address will be valid again.

This is my suggestion.

Sounds like a good idea, but: If you don't have the virus you won't be sending out any emails anyhow. So virus protection is the best way to go

Your idea is usuable though, from a different point of view. For example when you openly post your Email address. For example
I could change my email address on my site like this:
" mjrtom@NoSpamTo_t-online.de "
That would at least keep the spam bots busy and any spam source, that tries to use that address, wouldn't get past his own mail server (since there is not a provider named NoSpamTo_...)
That method might keep spam sources from overloading your providers email pop servers (and the internet) with mail traffic. (And the Spammer might end up spamming himself if his mailer Daemons send him undeliverable return messages?)

real users would have to correct that address (remove the NoSpamTo_ part) before they save it in their address book .
(And keep virus definitions up to date)

Of course if everyone prefixed their providers name with "NoSpamTo_" the viruses and bots would soon learn to delete that themselves too.
But, if everyone uses his own prefix that would/might be a different story

Have Gun, Will Travel

You got the point.

To keep your virus protection up to date is essential but reactive and obviously hard to manage for many people (Don't understand why!)

IF everybody uses the same address modifikation the spam mailers may delete the additional "no spam" letters easily, but it's on your own to create some "zutrd" or "55t9k" to modify your addresses.
This won't protect you from activating a virus but hinders to send it to your friends AND spams the spamer back!
edit: if he collects the addresses /edit
Posting e-mail addresses is secure enough the way we do it:
Tarcoon at web dot de - else you have to tell the reader maybe wich letters to delete - thats uncomfortable.

My suggestion doesn't protect me but my friends.
I have to delete the additional letters everytime I send an e-mail, but I think it's a solution for a growing problem.
It would protect me if you would be so kind and add some extra letters to my e-mail address in your address book;)

And your problem wouldn't have occured either, if your friends would have done the same...

And it's cheap - nobody has to buy something:D

The only problem is:

the first who gets the virus wich sends itself to the adresses kept in the adressbook gets the mail-daemons messages. But that would be a sign for him a virus is resident on his computer.

Now guys - did you change your adresses?

Another way to avoid exploits is not to use M$ Outlook, I use "The Bat" but if everyone one used it, it would become vulnerable too.

I also use Popfile which is a clever mail sorting program which you can teach to recognise and catagorise all your mail including the spam.

Final tip would be "unsubscribing can work", if the company mailing you is using a list that you may or may not have subscribed to you can be removed from their list. The way I check is to keep the SPAM and look to see if the originating domain is constistant for that company and looks right.

I have managed to cut my SPAM from 10 a day down 2 a month by unsubscribing.

Jumbo



<font color=gold>[wide beam,Marain clear.tra. @4.28.891.7393+]</font id=gold>
xGCU Grey Area
oGSV Sleeper Service
It's all right. Goodbye and farewell.