Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is off topic, but concerns several people who post in here, and a couple on "the other corn board".

Some stupid A$$ decided to start spamming me with email about a week and a half ago. First there was one email, from an address like "crazy4kids@gokid.com", the next day there were three or four, from different addresses. And more and more each day, until last night I altered it so the victim email account would only be checked on the web, and not in my Outlook. Over a less than 12 hour period, I revieved 245 of these email in the one in box!

The emails are very simple, just a quick subject, like "registration", or "my info" etc.. And the body of the email is either blank or has one short sentance giving a reason you should open the attached document. DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT! I use MS Outlook for email, and it has rejected every attachment so far, so I haven't had the opportunity to verify that the attachment is a virus, but I'm relatively sure of it.

Also, the emailers are hijacking addresses and names! Several of the ones I got last night are from addresses I know, and know would not send such emails. My own address and name have even been used for a false header, and for the naming of the attachment. I have recieved them from Kathy, Rich (who I don't even have in my address book, so I know they got his address somewhere else) and several others who I see in here. I have tried to alert some of the major email companies, MSN, YAHOO, Hotmail and AOl, but none of them seem to shive a git about there users addresses being hijacked for spam.

If you are getting these emails, I don't know how we can stop them. I even went so far as to change my default email address, but they have started in on my other main address as well now. Could it be they are targeting herpers? I don't know, but I do find it odd that this started shortly after Kathy's post about HSUS and my emails to PETA about their "scare tactics" to children, trying to make them all vegitarians. If anyone else is getting these, and maybe knows how to completely stop it, please let me know! Let us all know!

Thanks for reading my vent, and hopefully most of you aren't getting hit with this just yet!
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Dianne
AKA IcedGoddess
6.7 Cornsnakes
1.3 Cats
0.1 Child
IcedGoddess Creations
Castle Serpents

I have been getting these e-mail recently too. I get them from colleges that have e-mailed me, people i have never even heard of, Kathy, Rich, I think even you. The attachments are .pif files(old picture files replaced by .jpg and .gif files b/c they were too easy for people to use to transport viruses)I also know it has been sending people these things using my e-mail address as the name b/c every now and then i get a message saying that my mail could not be delivered to so and so b/c the address was no longer in existance and they don't show up in my sent items folders so i have no clue what is going on. I am going to try e-mailing yahoo to see if they'll even respond and i'm going to try changing my password to see if that helps

Let me know if you find any info on it or find out how to stop it
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~~~Amy~~~
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>> My Website Siva*s Serpents

I think I have gotten them from you. It's not really coming from us, they are using our addresses to create false headers. I've also found out that there are a couple of websites (one is a doll website) that are no longer accepting email because of this.

Make sure you have a good anti-virus, and don't open attachments. Hopefully this will end soon, maybe there needs to be an option to refuse any emails with a .pif attachment? Either way, if you see that your receiving them from your own address, notify your email acount host, and let them know that your address has been hijacked, so you don't get banned.
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Dianne
AKA IcedGoddess
6.7 Cornsnakes
1.3 Cats
0.1 Child
IcedGoddess Creations
Castle Serpents

and i'm sick of it. I've only been getting about 18 a day. I cant imagine what it would be like to get as many as you have.
Also, i keep getting returns from Yahoo!. They're saying they wouldn't send the e-mails i tried to send, because there were viruses in them. Thing is, I've never sent those e-mails, and i dont even know the addresses they were sent to.
So they're not just using our names as a header, they're actually sending them through us, somehow.

I reported the problem to my hosting company, and here's part of what they sent me:

Hello Dianne,

The problem you have described is called email spoofing and it is very easy to do. I can actually configure my POP mail client to send emails from my location here as dianne@icedgoddess.com. Anyone who only looks at the return email address will think it's email from you.

Only if you look at the header of the email, will you be able to see the IP address of the originating email server. Once you have obtained the IP of the originating email server, you can make a complaint to that network's administrator or Spamcop.net of this problem to try to make it stop. The administrators of that network will be able to determine the user by checking logs.

This is why we get the server notices if one is sent with our address, the email servers read the address, not the IP. I've gone through and will be blocking IP's from now on, rather than the email addresses the letters are coming from. The internet is great, but too easy for people to mess with.
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Dianne
AKA IcedGoddess
6.7 Cornsnakes
1.3 Cats
0.1 Child
IcedGoddess Creations
Castle Serpents

Since I put auto-responders on my victim email account, I haven't gotten one of the .pif emails!

I went from 245 over night, to zero over night in one day just after that switch. I did get a few server messages that "the email I sent" was to a bad address, even though I hhaven't sent any. So obviously my address is still being used to make false headers, but at least my inbox wasn't full!
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Dianne
AKA IcedGoddess
6.7 Cornsnakes
1.3 Cats
0.1 Child
IcedGoddess Creations
Castle Serpents

so, i just had to also fix this problem on my computer. of course, in the week that my husband was changing our computers and mine had no anti virus program on it. if you are sending emails out to other people, or getting alot, make sure you run a virus check to double check that you didn't get anything. after doing that and finding 8 worms/trojans and deleting them the emailing stopped, sadly though not before it infected at least 6 other computers that I know of. this virus/worm is going on everywhere! they can not find out where it is orginating.
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Jamie
0.0.1 corn (Rio)