Mail not sent by me Bounced Back to me

[ravisunny2]

SPAMs are one thing, but getting bounced email supposedly sent by me, is quite another thing.

How can some one send an email using my email id ? I didn't send it.
And my sent box has no record of that mail ( I always save my mail in the sent box).

Got to keep changing my hotmail pwd frequently, I suppose.

But the blessed pwd is obviously stored somewhere (encrypted or not).

Can't stop nasties from creating havoc.

But how do you convince the angry recipient that you didn't send that mail ?

Especially if it is riddled with virus, and contains profane content !!

 

[zipperman]

Spam protection

I use yahoo email.It has spam protection.They go to my Bulk folder.
If i delete them there they are then banned .If i recognize them i move them to my inbox.
Check Hotmail for this option,or use yahoo.

 

[DelJo63]

I can't tell you the details or 1,000,000's of others would wreck havoc on the rest of us -- I'm sure you understand.

That said, the password for your email account has
nothing to do with forging the origin of the email.

It is easily done and there is absolutely no defense for forged email.

Once this occurs, your sole choice is to abandon your existing email-id
and create another one.

In the future, be careful how you use your email-id, particularly on news groups;
never use it verbatum -- but alter it to avoid spammer's efforts via automation.
If your email-id were joedoe@somedomain.com, modify it to joe_NoSpAm_doe@somedomain.com
and then in the signature note "remove the _NoSpAm_ to reply to me"

 

[RealBlackStuff]

The problem, more often than not, is someone else's PC that got hijacked by a spambot or zombie or whatever the flavor of the day is.
These use your email address to send thousands of spam emails.
As said above, only thing you can do is change your email and be careful whom you give it to!

 

[DelJo63]

The problem, more often than not, is someone else's PC that got hijacked by a spambot or zombie ...

the bounce returning whence it did not honestly originate indicates the
<FROM: <REPLY-TO: headers were forged, not
just a bulk send-to list a spammer would use.

 

[zipperman]

Bounced back ?

The only thing i know about this is if i send email to someone who has no
room to receive it,or rejects certain attachments.Or if they post a phony address somewhere.
No mystery persons involved.
What is your more detailed description of "bounced back"

 

[DelJo63]

The only thing i know about this is if i send email to someone who has no
room to receive it,or rejects certain attachments.Or if they post a phony address somewhere.
No mystery persons involved.
What is your more detailed description of "bounced back"

you are quite correct -- it returns from whence it came.

if however, you never sent the mail in the first place, and the remote postoffice
returns it to YOU OR the remote user replies to YOU,
then the <from <reply headers were forged -- trust me -- it's trivial to do.

 

[ravisunny2]

Thank you all.

I'll have to use my email id more carefully.

Perhaps I'll keep a disposable one for trial cases.

Luckily, I keep another personal email id.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

I forgot to mention that 'your' email address was found in the other computer's address book.

 

[zipperman]

One more mystery

you are quite correct -- it returns from whence it came.

if however, you never sent the mail in the first place, and the remote postoffice
returns it to YOU OR the remote user replies to YOU,
then the <from <reply headers were forged -- trust me -- it's trivial to do.

I get OExpress email addressed to for example
johnbrown@myaddress.com
I am not johnbrown.My ISP would not comment or tell me if johnbrown
was a customer.
But OE is easy to block senders.Use OE for your trusted contacts though.
The above is a rare occurence.

 

[DelJo63]

I get OExpress email addressed to for example
johnbrown@[B]myaddress.com[/B]
I am not johnbrown.

When you have your own domain myaddress.com and have hosted email services on it,
then the configuration of your POP3 server is responsible to verify that all emails
are destined for valid users -- if johnbrown is not in your domain, your server should
have bounced the mail and you should have not received it.
It would appear that the default mailbox is poorly configured.

 

[ravisunny2]

And it has started again

I can't tell you the details or 1,000,000's of others would wreck havoc on the rest of us -- I'm sure you understand.

That said, the password for your email account has
nothing to do with forging the origin of the email.

It is easily done and there is absolutely no defense for forged email.

Once this occurs, your sole choice is to abandon your existing email-id
and create another one.

In the future, be careful how you use your email-id, particularly on news groups;
never use it verbatum -- but alter it to avoid spammer's efforts via automation.
If your email-id were joedoe@somedomain.com, modify it to joe_NoSpAm_@somedomain.com
and then in the signature note "remove the _NoSpAm_ to reply to me"

In the last two days, I have recevied the messgae that mail 'sent' by me could not be delivered because it was bounced.

I checked the details of one, and found gibberish. Yes, I know it is unsafe to open such mail, but I had to know what was being sent.

Is abandoning the email id the only resort ?

This is a mind boggling issue if it cannot be tracked down as to who forged the header i.e. used my email id.

Just imagine how easy it would be to get someone into trouble by sending a 'threatening' email to a High Security site!

 

[LookinAround]

Did a quick read through the thread, and don't think i saw it listed... when someone's own computer is infected some malware can be sending emails from the user's computer to potentially old or malformed email addresses which then get returned.

When you say "how can i received bounced mail i never sent?" You may have never sent it but something on your computer did!

 

[ravisunny2]

Please read what joebeard has written.
It has nothing to do with bots/zombies/ etc.

While no one can guarantee that their system is clean, I've done a few scans, and what joebeard says seems to make sense.

 

[captaincranky]

Duck..... Incoming ......... Email......

Thank you all.

I'll have to use my email id more carefully.

Perhaps I'll keep a disposable one for trial cases.

Luckily, I keep another personal email id.

I found this article at PCWorld magazine.......about "backskatter". Though you might it interesting.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...ail_bouncebacks_youve_been_backscattered.html

 

[zipperman]

Did some more checking

When you have your own domain myaddress.com and have hosted email services on it,
then the configuration of your POP3 server is responsible to verify that all emails
are destined for valid users -- if johnbrown is not in your domain, your server should
have bounced the mail and you should have not received it.
It would appear that the default mailbox is poorly configured.

I had my Server check my settings and don't seem to get any now,but
they would not check if the To receiver was a "valid user"
I gave them a piece of my mind for not seeming to care or checking their members list for eg : wrong name,my address.
As for Spam in general,it seems ok if you have a STOP sending option.
We are faced with this and all other types of advertiseing every day in other ways.
I don't mind Creative Labs or ATI for example.I can stop them.

 

[ravisunny2]

Backskatter

I found this article at PCWorld magazine.......about "backskatter". Though you might it interesting.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...ail_bouncebacks_youve_been_backscattered.html

Thank you, Cap.

This does clear many doubts, and shows that joebeard was right.

For general info, I am quoting some parts of the article :

Users often think that the backscatter may be a sign that their computer has been hacked and is sending out spam messages, said Brad Bartman, a global support manager with Text 100, a public relations consultancy. "They look at it and they're like, 'Whoa, is my PC infected with a virus?'" he said.

"This is a serious problem that is hard to deal with, to be honest," he said. "We can blame spammers for causing the issue in the first place, but it exists because of the mail servers that are not configured to deal with spam."

 

[Grateful]

Happened to me, too- different reason

I had a problem like this also, but I was receiving huge numbers of undeliverable mail from my address. When I set my firewall to warn me of outgoing mail, I caught a spambot operating on my own computer. This happened some time ago so I forget exactly how I got rid of it, but I do remember it wasn't all that easy. Now I keep monitoring that little fact about sent email.