Dodi Schultz
May 22nd, 2006, 02:13 PM
Maybe some e-mail maven here will know the answer to this one.
A major annoyance over the past few months has been the arrival in my mailbox--daily, most days exceeding the amount of spam--of messages "returned" to me because the addressee was unknown ("Hi. This is the qmail-send program at [legitdomain.com]. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addressee..."].
Trouble is, these aren't messages I actually sent. They're spam--mainly for diet nostrums and pharmaceuticals--and my address has been faked thereon as the "from" source. Of course spammers use shotgun messaging, and some addresses are bound to be wrong or outdated.
No, it's not that my computer's infected and they're really coming from me. My e-mail's still handled with TAPCIS--still running on plain DOS--and binary stuff is still simply scanned and routinely deleted from my mailbox. Another indication that it didn't originate from my computer is that the return address isn't as my system applies it (the capitalization is different).
It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that this means either that the computer of some friend or acquaintance has been corrupted and is being used (along with its address book) to send spam OR that the address has been picked up from such a computer.
Questions: Is there a way to stop it? (I know that it's not the province of the CIS people who try to keep spam out; this isn't incoming spam.) Or, if not, and the computer of someone I know is being used--is there a way to find out whose?
--Dodi
A major annoyance over the past few months has been the arrival in my mailbox--daily, most days exceeding the amount of spam--of messages "returned" to me because the addressee was unknown ("Hi. This is the qmail-send program at [legitdomain.com]. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addressee..."].
Trouble is, these aren't messages I actually sent. They're spam--mainly for diet nostrums and pharmaceuticals--and my address has been faked thereon as the "from" source. Of course spammers use shotgun messaging, and some addresses are bound to be wrong or outdated.
No, it's not that my computer's infected and they're really coming from me. My e-mail's still handled with TAPCIS--still running on plain DOS--and binary stuff is still simply scanned and routinely deleted from my mailbox. Another indication that it didn't originate from my computer is that the return address isn't as my system applies it (the capitalization is different).
It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that this means either that the computer of some friend or acquaintance has been corrupted and is being used (along with its address book) to send spam OR that the address has been picked up from such a computer.
Questions: Is there a way to stop it? (I know that it's not the province of the CIS people who try to keep spam out; this isn't incoming spam.) Or, if not, and the computer of someone I know is being used--is there a way to find out whose?
--Dodi