OT who are these people OT

[Plymouthy Adams]

I get many e-mail from folks unknown, same as many of you I am sure. Most of these are filtered to a junk folder but as I often get an e-mail from this forum in that folder, I scan prior the titles before deleting. The new trend today is "I got you busted with this photo" with an attachment..and another "you should kill your wife for this photo" for real, do people actually open these e-mail or any e-mail that is re- and you never initiated..are there that many folks who just can't stand "not knowning" it blows my mind to think folks actually fall for this stuff..

[T120]

Never had any SPAM or junk mail via this forum as yet.I have had suspicious email from acquaintances on several occasions along with a link to a web address attached.I delete them without opening them and when I've followed up with a phone call ,apparently these emails were sent without their knowledge.I gather sometimes a persons email address list can get compromised and the nuisance emails sent.

...No instant wealth from unknown relatives nor prizes won at my address. LOL

[BobT-47P15]

If I think an email is B S, I can preview it once highlighted, down at the

bottom of my screen without actually opening it. After getting quite a

few of these I can pretty well tell which ones are spam.

Lately some places are stealing real people's names and sending out

advertising under their name.....including one lately supposedly from

my brother in law. So, now I preview suspected items from them, too.

The internet is good for lots of things......it's too bad there are so many

devious people out there using it for their purposes, whatever they may

be. No problems with this forum however.

Some time back, a person told me you can delete a mail - causing it to disappear into cyber space

and not even going to your "deleted" box. Highlight the message header that first appears, press

the "shift" key down, then press the "delete" key. It then brings up a box about "do you want to

delete this message?" requiring a yes or no answer. The answer of course is "yes". You might have

to experiment a bit to become used to the process. Of course, if you accidently do away with a good

mail....you can't get it back.

Edited February 29, 2012 by BobT-47P15

[randroid]

Tim,

We all get spam in one form or another but I must say I've don't recall ever getting any quite like that. Perhaps it's your warm smile and pleasant disposition that attracts them? Just a guess.

In reality I would suppose it's a small group of folks who want to gain notoriety spreading malware with that ploy and just happened to get your email addy. What bugs me most about it is not a single person with the authority to do anything about that sort of attack will lift a finger to stop them, and when entire countries can have their internet shut down I can only assume there's something that could be done.

-Randy

[Plymouthy Adams]

I NEVER said I got scam mail from this site...so please do not read that into the verbage..only that in my filtered junk mail folder sometimes a legit post from this site is placed there..

As I never visit these scam sites, never open the mail they send so I cannot in any manner think my boyish charm and quick wit ever drew these folks to my mailbox...95% of them are in a language I have no desire to learn..be that as it may..basically it is mass targeting to the internet mailbox I use for communication to the forum and such. I rarely post my home addy..it gets like zero hits in comparison..and yes this host could wirtie programs agianst this but why bother for they could care less probably in some manner actual get a kickback in some manner or another..just don't know

I was just remarking that these guys are pretty sure of themselves that a good number of folks are naive or so stupid not to even remember they themselves did not initiate the -re- message they are supposed to reply too..that is all..

I know a bunch I get is probably due in part to a sister in law who has no concept of security by never using the BCC feature nor deleteing address on anything she forwards...I have yet to understand the logic or reason for those "lack of actions"

auto preview is not a good idea..

[greg g]

I have gotten several bogus emails from people I recognize as being members here. In several cases it was apparent that their accounts had been hacked or their contact list hijacked, and phishing stuff was being sent out under their auspices.

One was one of those I have been detained while traveling in Europe, and my papers are bing held until I can pay a bond etc.

Never gotten anything in the form of a redirected post. Apparently some of you who have contacted me have more than one account, as sometimes things from one show up in my in box but stuff from the other goes in to my junk file.

[Don Coatney]

In the past month I have recieved several e-mails from some guy named don coatney who has the same e-mail address as I do. The e-mails are job offers for stay at home internet sales positions. I sure wish I knew who this rascal is so I could stop these bogas e-mails. I am not sending these e-mails to myself so someone has hacked my e-mail address.

Bob T mentioned that using a preview window allowes one to read the e-mail without actually opening it. I dont believe that is true. I believe that once the e-mail is previewed any virus that may be attached to the e-mail now has a route to your hard drive. I use Comcast as my ISP. All e-mail I get stays on there server unless I download it directly to my computor. I believe gmail is set up the same way. I am in the process of atarting a gmail account and I will know better how it works once I have it up and running.

Tim mentioned using the BCC (blind carbon copy) line and deleting all old e-mail addresses when forwarding e-mails. I have some strict rules I follow when ever I send any e-mail out.

In addition to sending everything BCC and deleting all old e-mail addresses I also clean everything up to include getting rid of all tag lines and correcting the subject line to meet my needs. If for any reason I cannot clean it up I dont send it. I never forward any thing that states "send this to all your friends" or "keep this going". I dont need anyone telling me what to do. If I think it is worth passing on I will do so but I dont send everything to everybody. It has to be worth sending before I will send it. I also never send anything politically nor religeously related. My mind is made up on both these subjects and I respect that the minds of my friends is also made up. If I get a link worth sending I will copy and paste the link to a new e-mail without using the forward feature. It sure would be nice if everyone followed these rules.

[LAKOTA169]

I'm like Don, I will get an email from myself once in awhile. It's in my spam folder, so I just delete it. for the past few months, I've been getting spam written in Arabic. Sometimes 15 or 20 all at once. I'll go a couple days without any and then get hit by a bunch. I think, that the senders get paid when an email is opened (only a few cents per email). I also delete all email that says to send to everyone in your contact list.

[Frank Elder]

I have gotten several bogus emails from people I recognize as being members here. In several cases it was apparent that their accounts had been hacked or their contact list hijacked, and phishing stuff was being sent out under their auspices.

One was one of those I have been detained while traveling in Europe, and my papers are bing held until I can pay a bond etc.

Never gotten anything in the form of a redirected post. Apparently some of you who have contacted me have more than one account, as sometimes things from one show up in my in box but stuff from the other goes in to my junk file.

It would be nice to list what members you think have been hacked.......or maybe you PMed them already.

[greg g]

I believe I PM'd those folks. Its been a while

[Plymouthy Adams]

for what it is worth to members here, our IA office has issued an alert that even the Microsoft Help files have been corrupted by hackers..

[Dan Hiebert]

Uncle Sam is very paranoid about cyber attacks, we have procedures in place that may seem overly simple, but are known to work as long as you ALWAYS follow them. One being to simply delete suspect emails right out of your inbox. Anything that opens them, to include previews, can damage your computer with viruses or allow spyware or malware to be downloaded without your knowing it. So just delete suspect emails, that's the best and safest bet. I, too, was detained overseas pending a bond. I didn't get the email, but my In-laws did. (Sadly, before they found out it was a hoax, I don't think there was much of a rush to find the money ) The lengths that cyber criminals will go to is, for want of a better description, impressive. They have such things as programs that do nothing but run number sequences 24/7/365 until they hit a valid credit card number and PIN, then the program automatically either withdraws the cash limit from your account, or purchases stuff. (My agency actually arrested some Iraqis near Detroit a few years ago, who had a laptop set up to do that.) You'll get a bill for some wierd thing you bought two states away. Latest trend is to buy small dollar items so you "won't notice".

[greg g]

I have found that I do not get a lot of spam. Some of this I attribute to the use of a non alphabetic symbol as part of the user name. In my case and "_" seems to filter a lot of crap.

[TodFitch]

Uncle Sam is very paranoid about cyber attacks, we have procedures in place that may seem overly simple, but are known to work as long as you ALWAYS follow them. One being to simply delete suspect emails right out of your inbox. Anything that opens them, to include previews, can damage your computer with viruses or allow spyware or malware to be downloaded without your knowing it. So just delete suspect emails, that's the best and safest bet.

...

You'll get a bill for some weird thing you bought two states away. Latest trend is to buy small dollar items so you "won't notice".

Good advise.

Being AR and compulsive in financial matters I can't imagine not noticing anything on a banking statement. But I guess there are others who care less about their money than I.

I am not sending these e-mails to myself so someone has hacked my e-mail address.

Unfortunately the way most mail servers are set up there is no need to hack an account to send mail to a person and fake the sender as the same person. If you want I can send you an email to you with you as the sender. Trivially easy for anyone who has done a little shell scripting.

Unless, of course, your email provider has actually implemented a couple of systems that have been considered good practice for may years now. First there is "SPF" (originally "sender permitted from" and now called "sender policy framework") where the email provider can specify what mail servers are allowed to originate mail purporting to be from their domain. Second is DKIM ("domain key internet mail") where they can specify that all mail sent from a domain be digitally signed by a mail server so authorized. Both of these systems are transparent to the end user so you wouldn't have do anything, just the IT/network guys at your ISP. Between the two techniques it is possible to have the mail server receiving the mail to totally verify that the sender is who they claim to be and reject the mail otherwise.

But most companies, including banks who should know better, don't set it up. A bit frustrating to me to know the system can better deal with this problem and to have set up my email server to honor these systems and still have "the big boys" screw it up.

I have gotten several bogus emails from people I recognize as being members here. In several cases it was apparent that their accounts had been hacked or their contact list hijacked, and phishing stuff was being sent out under their auspices.

It would only take one person being hacked, not multiple. The chances are good that any one member of this forum has the email addresses for some other members in their address book.

I don't recall getting spam email that looks like it came from this site being hacked, but I have pretty good spam filters that stop lots of stuff.