Anyone else getting this SPAM?

Subject: Fw: Hi !
Date: Thu,27 Jun 2002 17:08:02 PM
From: Jessica<[email protected]>
To: [email protected]


wOW CHECK THIS
Jessica

----- Original Message -----
From: "loveshore" < [email protected] >
To: < [email protected] >
Sent: Thu,27 Jun 2002 17:08:02 PM
Subject: Hi !


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I've been getting one of these approximately EVERY TEN MINUTES!! The subject and sometimes the body can vary, but it *always* says Jessica in the "From" field, and it's always 38-40K long. I got like eighty of these overnight, and get a new one every 5-10 minutes. Scratch that - I just now got two more, only 3 or 4 minutes since receiving another two.

Bummer!!!

I havn't gotten any.......yet, but it sounds like AOL crap, the very reason I got away from it (AOL that is). But you're not AOL. It really sucks when people like that have to ruin it for someone. I have been getting more spam lately. It seems to be a growing trend again. I have also noticed that if I (unsubcribe) I just get bombarbed with more mail. There seems to be no way out of it for the individual.

Be wary of the "un-subscribe" options on these emails. Sometimes the only purpose that serves is to validate email addresses for future spamming.

I hope you have a good Anti - Virus running.
sounds like that screensaver could be a virus.

Thank God I'm not getting that one (yet, anyway).

I'm at my wit's end trying to deal with a company that has websites set up on servers in Communist China selling variously: Mortgages, Insurance and HGH (that Human Growth Hormone nonsense).

They have hijacked the email servers on all of the domains I webmaster and are sending out untold thousands of spam emails every day- He77, I'm getting hundreds myself, and tons of complaints from other people who are sick of it and thinking that I'm doing it.

Apparently they have a really good hacker working for them, because the source IP changes every couple of hours, then rotates through all of my domains.

The company that runs my co-located server says that there isn't a darn thing that can be done about it other than taking the whole server down. And even then it won't stop them from using my domain names it the <From> section.

I wish all these spammers would "die screaming". (Sorry, I just watched "The Long Kiss Goodnight" on tape last night, and that is one of the lines that stuck in my head.)

I wonder if these morons will ever realize that irritating people is NOT the way to get business.

Silviron ... sorry to hear about your hassles. I wish I could help out, but am pretty sure that once your IP's been hacked like that, your only practical option is to find a new one and kill the old. That probably isn't an option in your case.

As for you good people who're getting spammed to death ... I used to have that problem, too. Now, I use and recommend SpamKiller from McAfee. At $40, it isn't cheap, but it works.

SpamKiller allows you to return an 'error' message to senders. Spammers see it as the default 'mailbox not found' message and since they only make money from good email addresses, your 'bad' address gets dropped. It takes some time to make a difference.

I've used it for about two months now and I've seen a significant reduction in crapola spam being sent to my address. Even better, NO spam hits my inbox.

The worst thing you can do is reply to spam. Asking for removal or ANY other response confirms that address as valid and you just get more and more mail.

I think there's shareware software out there somewhere on the net that does many of the same things as SpamKiller, but I don't know of any other that allows you to return error messages to senders.

Good luck.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Silviron:
I hope you have a good Anti - Virus running.
sounds like that screensaver could be a virus.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I've got one running now.

I use an obsolete version of Netscape to do *all* of my email, and I have yet to "catch" a bug from an email. The new system scans every message I send out (so I know I won't accidentally send somebody else an unwanted houseguest, should I ever become infected with something), and the same old Netscape I've been using simply filters incoming baddies to the garbage can without them ever touching my inbox.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Silviron:
I'm at my wit's end trying to deal with a company that has websites set up on servers in Communist China selling variously: Mortgages, Insurance and HGH (that Human Growth Hormone nonsense). (etc.)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now that just plain SUCKS!! I'd be so pissed if that ever happened to me. I've got so much to lose if my AT&T subdomains were ever hijacked in that manner. It's not like I can just change providers or domain names - my very popular website would then come up 404 on every search engine for up to a year before the new URLs all got spidered in, and I'd probably lose what little ad $$ I get on that as well.

Fingers crossed - and I sure hope somebody can figure out how to stop these e-holes stealing your service and sullying your good name.

This is interesting information on how spammers can validate your email just by your previewing the email in OE-
There's a GIF file that OE tries to retrieve from the remote site, apparently, and it sends your IP address in doing so.
I've taken to retrieving my email, then going offline temporarily to read it, so it doesn't report back.


web bugs

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wingerr:
. . . spammers can validate your email just by your previewing the email in OE-
There's a GIF file that OE tries to retrieve . . . <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes. This is true of ANY e-mail program that attempts to display HTML mail. If the attempted retrevial is to anything that includes an FTP link, it also sends (usually) your e-mail address when the other end asks for it.

This has been true, and has been happening, since the software companies first started putting out mail clients that could display HTML mail.

One reason I use a mail program that does NOT display HTML . . .

It's a never ending battle, and the more complex the client software the easier it is to have it do things it shouldn't.

I there a "block sender" option in netscape? I use this feature often in Internet Explorer. If it's all coming from the same address this should stop it.

On a related/unrelated note, how do you guys generate all those neat GIFs, like the toilet attack and the so cute smiley hand wavey thing?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wingerr:
On a related/unrelated note, how do you guys generate all those neat GIFs, like the toilet attack and the so cute smiley hand wavey thing?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I hand-drew the "toilet attack" dot-by-dot and frame-by-frame in Photoshop, then used Gif Construction Set to link all the frames into an animation.

The smileys can be found at Plauder Smilies, a site based in Denmark I think. http://www.plauder-smilies.de

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wingerr:
On a related/unrelated note, how do you guys generate all those neat GIFs, like the toilet attack and the so cute smiley hand wavey thing?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


see here:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=22&t=000419

Ah, neat!

Thanks- looks like fun- I'd like to give that GIF Construction Set a try, maybe I'll look into it.

I like those wavey and gloopy smileys, pretty cute.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wingerr:
On a related/unrelated note, how do you guys generate all those neat GIFs, like the toilet attack and the so cute smiley hand wavey thing?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

On a PC, GifConstructionSet like Craig said, on a Mac try GifBuilder. Both of 'em do a decent job of assembling simple animations. The difficult part, of course, is the bunch of tiny drawings you have to make for them to assemble.

There are several animated gifs I use on other forums that I made for myself, and a few of mine have been used by others.

Caio!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The LED Museum:

I've been getting one of these approximately EVERY TEN MINUTES!! The subject and sometimes the body can vary, but it *always* says Jessica in the "From" field, and it's always 38-40K long. I got like eighty of these overnight, and get a new one every 5-10 minutes. Scratch that - I just now got two more, only 3 or 4 minutes since receiving another two.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I always use my hotmail account for public forums and newsgroups. It is always ridden with spam. They have a junk mail filter and box that would segregate out a portion of the spam. I used to still check the junk mail box because every so often a legit email would get tossed in there. But I had to tell it to automatically delete junk mail because I kept getting repeated emails much like you described every few minutes so that it would quickly fill up the limited hot mail quota and then I couldn't even receive legit hotmail. I use my personal email for just personal correspondence and it has been 99 percent spam free.

Not SPAM,

Virus..

Check the simularity..
=======================

Enjoy this friendship Screen Saver and Check ur friends circle...

Send this screensaver from www.constructed url to everyone you
consider a FRIEND, even if it means sending it back to the person
who sent it to you. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you
have a circle of friends.

* To remove yourself from this mailing list, point your browser to: http://constructed url/remove?freescreensaver
* Enter your email address (recipient's address) in the field provided and click "Unsubscribe".

Here is something I learned when I got my "MyRealBox" account (VERY strick send no SPAM policy)

Most providers don't like spam being sent out...so start forwarding those messages to "[email protected]" I started doing this and while I haven't gotten any eMails saying "Thankyou for reporting those scum that spam poor folks like you and have given spam, a perfectly nice lunch meat, such a bad name....." I have yet to get one returned. Sure the people at "@haverkate.nl" may not care...but it's worth a try.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by duffahtolla:
Not SPAM,

Virus..

Check the simularity..
=======================<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yup, I figured it was no good when I saw the double extensions (like .PIF.JPG). These automatically end up in my garbage and aren't a threat. I did download the latest virus files and scanned the system, and my HDs all came up clean.

Thanks everyone for your advice and sympathy-

I was just reading the review on SpamKiller in the new PC World magazine last night, and was thinking about downloading it. There are a couple of others according to the article, including a *free* one, but SpamKiller got the best review.....

That will help keep MY mailbox cleaner, but won't help the people out there that think I'm sending it.

There is a way that adding a few lines of code to the email server software you can link to one or more of the "blackhole" lists of spammers that will block them from getting through your server. But the guys that run my server say they can't touch the emailer program there because it is proprietary.

There are other ways I could fix it, but they would all require weeks of work and/or a few hundred dollars setup and recurring costs of $35 to $100 a month. So, I hope they just get tired of it, or the FCC or someone tracks them down and shuts them down.

Since Craig's site is a subdomain, he doesn't really have to worry about a hijacking much....

Yeah, I know about that validation trick about putting a .gif (even a 1 pixel invisible .gif)in an email- I always use ZoneAlarm and shut down all internet access when opening email coming from anyone I don't know. That way you don't have to log off to read your mail in privacy.

I highly recommend ZoneAlarm firewall to anyone that doesn't have a hardware firewall- They have a free download that works very well, although I use the Pro version. Install it, and watch the logs and you will be astounded how often your computer will be probed by "strangers" trying to use your computer for "fun" or nefarious purposes.

Using an "outside" email box won't really work for me as I'm running so many domains and have so many email addresses I have to check.... These guys didn't get the email addresses from public forums etc. anyway- They got them from checking domain registry records at "internic".