Visitor Question: Spam Emails and Spoofed Addresses (2007-07-16)

2007-07-16 13:31

Visitor Question: Spam Emails and Spoofed Addresses

How are spammers using my email to give spam emails to other people? I didn't even know my email was sending bad things until I received emails from people telling me.

-Ash

When a spammer sends out their trash emails, they are often doing something called email spoofing, which allows them to put any address they want as the sender of the trash email. Unfortunately Ash, it appears that some spammers have decided to spoof your email address for a while, and they are sending out trash messages with your email address marked as the sender. There are multiple reasons why spammers will spoof addresses. One reason is, any mail that doesn't reach the intended destination will be bounced back to your inbox, rather than back to the spammer, who doesn't want to deal with the undelivered mail. A more pressing reason is, the spammer is breaking the law by sending out mass advertisement emails, and by spoofing random addresses in the "From" field, they are attempting to mask their true identity. Unfortunately there currently really isn't much you can do to stop your email address from being spoofed, but you will find that it will eventually stop as the spammer moves on to use someone else's email address. While this activity is illegal, as is spamming in general, it is hard to prosecute an offending party, because they are actively attempting to mask their identity, often succeeding with a combination of spoofed addresses and fake or anonymous email header information. The federal trade commission has an email address set up to forward spam emails to - from their website:

"If you get spam email that you think is deceptive, forward it to spam@uce.gov. The FTC uses the spam stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive email."

So, if you are like me and you receive 70+ spam messages a day, you can help the FTC by forwarding a sample of the spam to spam@uce.gov. I hope that this problem doesn't plague you much longer, Ash, and I'm sorry I couldn't offer a solution. Do you have a tech related question that think I could help answer, or a topic that you would like me to write about? Don't hesitate to send me an email!

- Kevin
Kevin (at) Upcsite (dot) Net

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Comments:

So what's with all the ads? I thought about adding ad sense just as part of my experimenting with blogging. But I figured they'd just look tacky and I really wouldn't make enough money for it to be worth while. So you going to keep us updated about how the ads are working, whether you're making more than $3/month, etc.?

Posted by: Steve | 2007-07-18 2:26:07

Steve, the ads are like you might have imagined, just a way for me to try and make a bit of extra money to pay for hosting expenses etc. I put a lot of thought into my placement of ads, and I don't think they are intrusive or overpowering at all. While I am personally interested in blog monetization topics, that is not the topic of this site, so no, I will not likely be giving my readers updates on earnings - if you are really curious, I'll just say I am still in the negative after paying my hosting bill every month ;)

Posted by: Kevin | 2007-07-18 11:43:17

Awesome post. I have had that happen to friends of mine before and didn't know what to say. I thought they had been hacked and they were sent from their mailbox directly. Ill copy down that address, it may come in handy someday if I have to report someone. Thanks

Posted by: Devin | 2007-07-22 21:28:52

Glad to be informative and helpful Devin, hopefully I will continue to get the occasional tech question from visitors to give me good topics to write about :)

Posted by: Kevin | 2007-07-23 13:01:31

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