Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 217

Can someone help me with spam?

I get spammed all the time, especially at my Hotmail account. I usually just roll my eyes and delete it - I already have a University Degree thank you very much; and it's from an accredited university. However, today I got a spam message from me! In my hotmail inbox, I got a spam message that said it was from my Yahoo mail account! So now I'm pissed! How did they do this? What can I do about it?

FWIW, I looked at the message header and got the ip that it seemed to originate from and did a WHOIS search. The problem is, I'm not sure how to interpret the results. It says the hostmname is SCOTT. At the very bottom it says Electric Lightwave Inc with a link and SAS International. The links, of course do a whois search on those companies. And provide contact information. Is one of these companies responsible for the SPAM or are they just ISP's. Any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

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Mike
I'd rather be upside down in my kayak than rightside up at my desk.

Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 33

Re: Can someone help me with spam?

quote:

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Originally posted by Jupe
FWIW, I looked at the message header and got the ip that it seemed to originate from and did a WHOIS search. The problem is, I'm not sure how to interpret the results. It says the hostmname is SCOTT. At the very bottom it says Electric Lightwave Inc with a link and SAS International. The links, of course do a whois search on those companies. And provide contact information. Is one of these companies responsible for the SPAM or are they just ISP's. Any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

Supposedly, one way to reduce your Hotmail spam is to turn off your listing in the member list (or whatever it's called). I dropped my Hotmail box a while back so can't say for sure.
I often got Hotmail spam that said it came from my Hotmail email. There are numerous ways for Spammers to falsify the header, and IIRC (and please correct, anyone, if I've got this wrong) if it claims it came from your email, it's likely that they don't actually have that email address, but their spam software is picking it out of the recipient address book.

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Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

When email protocols were first established, security was not on the priority list. It's fairly easy for a spammer to fake most of the headers. That said, a full header does contain a path that is rather difficult (but not impossible) to fake, so you can, with some digging, figure out where it came from, or, at the very least, figure out the open relay that the spammer is using.

Unfortunately, most open relays are overseas on servers no one cares about, so it's tough to shut those doors.

If you have access to your mail server, you can set up Procmail filters that filter spam at the server level. This takes a bit of work, though.

Bottom line is that there is no way to stop spam short of bugging your legistlatures to do something about it.

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