| Jonny555 |
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| Sat May 31 2003 08:15 PM |
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New spamming technique
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Just lately I've been getting spam mail, but addressed to someone else, lots of different names. They seem to be confirmation mailings with instructions on how to proceed. However, they then go on to tell you all the benefits of whatever service it is they're offering. Surely you would already know that.
They have come from lots of different places so I don't think they're connected, other than it could be one company sending them out for lots of others. Because of the way they are worded they get around spam blocking software and are difficult to block with outlook express because the senders are different all the time.
| putasolutions |
| (regular) |
| Sat May 31 2003 08:32 PM |
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Re: New spamming technique
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It's called dictionary attack spamming
It works on a principle developed during the Second World War to try and break the Enigma code. Whereupon you try every combination of letters and numbers in the hope that maybe one or two might hit a target.
In a dictionary attack the spammer just sends email to every address in a dictionary of commonly used email addresses. Actually two dictionaries are used. One is commonly used user names. The other is known domain names. So you might have dan, danny, daniel, etc. in one dictionary and aol, netscape, mindspring, etc. in the other. The system then matches the names to the domains and blasts the spam out.
Obviously hotmail, aol, yahoo will be high on a dictionary attackers list
Never respond to a spam to remove yourself from their list. This single action will do more to protect your account than anything else.
Of all the Things I've Iost, I miss my mind the most
| Jonny555 |
| () |
| Sat May 31 2003 10:57 PM |
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Re: New spamming technique
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Oh I never reply to be removed. I'm forever advising my own community members not to do that.
Early last year I had a problem with one particular site that was sending me about 40 e-mails per day. In the end I got so fed up with it that I e-mailed them threatening legal action. I never recieved a single one after that. That site was UK based so thats why it probably worked. I wouldn't attempt that with a foriegn site.
| **DONOTDELETE** |
| (Unregistered) |
| Mon Jun 02 2003 10:22 AM |
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Re: New spamming technique
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You should never reply to any automated emails like that. They are either spam just randomly looking for people that respond (to prove an address is real so they can sell it) or they contain a virus, having been sent by someone else's infected computer.
The only thing you can safely do is delete it, and NEVER open attachments.
If you want to stop spam you need to get a filter, and downloadable programmes don't guarantee to stop spam, neither do the in-built filters in Outlook and Outlook Express.
The only way to eradicate spam is to sign up to a gatekeeper service. This means anyone sending you emails will get a message saying they first have to manually identify themselves as human and not a computer, so it is a bit inhibitive but worth doing to stay safe.
Try these:
http://www.choicemail.com
http://www.mailwiper.com
http://www.mailkey.com
http://www.mailblocker.com
| **DONOTDELETE** |
| (Unregistered) |
| Tue Jun 03 2003 10:07 AM |
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Re: New spamming technique
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I find that all the spam that I get comes from 'yahoo.com' or 'hotmail.com' or a couple of other domains. As I do not know anyone whose e-mail address includes any of these domains I use an e-mail client that will automatically delete all e-mail from these domains without downloading it from the server, something very useful if the e-mail might have a virus.
The e-mail client that does this is called PocoMail (www.pocomail.com) which is shareware. There is another e-mail client that can be made to do this which is called Calypso and is freeware and is available from Rose City Software (can't remember the exact address)