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Anyone else afflicted with this new SPAM?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Jack 06, Nov 3, 2005.

  1. Jack 06

    Jack 06 New Member

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    I thought this was as good a place as any to check with other computer users.

    For the last 3-4 weeks I've been flooded---about 20-25 per day---with this new spam I hadn't seen before. It NEVER gets shunted to Yahoo's "bulk mail", despite my marking each one as spam. It ALWAYS gets by the filter and into my regular mail.

    I've tried to unsubscribe to no avail.

    It even has a disclaimer: "this is never sent unsolicited---to unsubscribe---", which I now think is a ruse.

    Savings E-mail. Each one advertises something different---travel, insurance, loans, etc.

    Every time I even "refresh", 1-2 more get in.
     
  2. Kiloran

    Kiloran New Member

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    <_< Not only is it a ruse, it identifies you as an active email account that will actually open and read your SPAM.

    Opening email in HTML format also has the unfortunate behavior of enabling tracking beacons embedded in images.
    This includes previewing in HTML.
    Always open or preview suspect email in plain text to avoid this.
     
  3. ScottY

    ScottY New Member

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    OMG, same thing here. But not like 20-25 per day, mine's more like 3 to 5 per day. I also marked every one as SPAM, but keep getting them everyday.
     
  4. ScubaX

    ScubaX Member

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    For the last few weeks I have been getting blank emails. The To, From, Subject and Content are all blank. The properties are incomplete and dont show from or to. I suspect someone has a virus and either my ISP or theirs is catching it and wiping it clean.
     
  5. tag

    tag Senior Member

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    Yep! I have a Yahoo Business Mail account that is associated with my domain name. I don't recall precisely when this nonsense began but it was definitely within the past month.

    I had been using my primary mailbox as the "catchall" so all misaddressed e-mail got shunted into my mailbox. For example, if my primary were [email protected], then an e-mail addressed as [email protected] would be re-directed into my primary mailbox.. That situation was extremely rare, though, to the point where I would only get a couple of misaddressed e-mails per year.

    NOW, I've been getting dozens and dozens of spam e-mails per day. So many, in fact, that they have to be computer-generated.....everything from [email protected] to [email protected] each one ostensibly contains an attachment with a virus that "couldn't be cleaned". VERY ANNOYING!

    What I wound up doing was deleting my "catchall" entirely. Thus, e-mail that is misaddressed is now returned to the sender.
     
  6. craigcush

    craigcush Member

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    Not a one. At least in my pop3 account. I think the combination of a great small town ISP that has great filters and Apple's Mail program, nothing gets by. And a virus would not know what to do inside a Mac anyway. I have found them dormant in a friends Macs with VirusBarrier X and found they came from sites I would not visit.
    Which brings up managing email accounts. I NEVER use my pop3 account for any purpose than personal friends. I do not keep that account linked to my browser (blank) either.
    I use a Yahoo WEB mail account for all commercial uses, web purchases, subscriptions, etc. Yahoo has filtered 99% off the junk. The last few weeks I noticed the spam/junk folder in yahoo filling up faster though. (don't these people have jobs?)

    Tag and Kiloran have good points too.

    Thats what has worked for me 9 years now.
     
  7. Sufferin' Prius Envy

    Sufferin' Prius Envy Platinum Member

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    What I do.

    1) Never “unsubscribeâ€!!!! If you never subscribed in the first place, you are only confirming your email address is active and spamers will place you on "confirmed" lists.

    2) Never open a suspected spam unless from within a protected environment (Sandbox, etc.), just opening an email can sometimes alert spammers that their emails are getting through.

    2a) If you fail to heed #2, then absolutely never NEVER click on ANY link in an email . . . ANY LINK, EVER!!!! If it looks like an emil from ebay, then go to your browser and type in www.ebay.com. yourself.

    3) Use your spam filter. I use Mozilla Thunderbird for email. http://www.mozilla.org/ It does an outstanding job of learning and identifying spam. When a message is marked as spam, it can be safely opened . . . Thunderbird strips active content (Java applets, Javascript, VB, etc) as well as web bugs from the message. For the really abusive spammers, I just have Thunderbird automatically delete the spam - I don’t need to see any emails from “[email protected].â€

    4) Run an anit-virus which covers email. ALL ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS DON’T PROTECT EMAIL!!!! I use the free version of Avast! 4 Home. Along with normal web content scanning, avast actively scans all incoming and outgoing email and marks it as scanned.
    http://www.avast.com/i_kat_207.php?lang=ENG

    Avast also has a “Professional Edition†with more advanced features and protection for a modest cost. (No I don’t work for them in any way)
    http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_professional.html

    5) Use multiple email addresses. Use one for friends and family, one or more for work, and one for spam causing usages - like signing-up for whatever and communication with anyone not mentioned above. (The funny thing is my “Spam†email box stays clean because I have the word “spam†in the address . . . . [email protected]. Spammers tend to scrub out the word spam from email lists.

    6) Do not send, or allow others to send you an email addressed to more that one recipient in the TO: field. You’ve seen them . . .

    TO: you + 100 of my closest email friends
    RE: funny joke of the day [is on us with spammers harvesting 102 email addresses.]


    If they must: tell them the safer way is to send it like this:

    TO: me (email address of the sender)
    BCC: +100 of my closest email friends
    RE: the joke won’t be on us this way