Think of the "from" line of an e-mail as nothing more than the return address on a snail-mail envelope. Nothing stops me from writing someone else's name and address, and the mail will still go through.
Posted by: Ken B at May 5, 2008 8:46 AM
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!
Posted by: Alex at August 16, 2008 3:25 AM
Presumably this means I should be careful about adding such spam emails to my spam filter's list of spam addresses. I do occasionally send emails to myself, and I don't want to block these.
Posted by: John Sinclair at November 10, 2008 5:35 PM
I get high importance mail from my self, stating "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)" the picture then advertise medicene and link takes me to Canadian Pharmacy. How do I prevent the spamers from doing it to me and how do I stop it?
Posted by: Alma van der Poel at December 14, 2008 1:40 PM
The best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you
Posted by: Kelly Brown at June 12, 2009 5:49 PM
The best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you
Posted by: JaneRadriges at June 13, 2009 6:07 PM
OK, so I completely understand that anyone can write anything in the "from" line, what I need to know is HOW do I block them when the from is my own address that they put in, and not theirs? I send myself emails all the time so I can print on another level of my home (to another imac) so I don't want to block myself, What I'd like to know is HOW do I find their email? who it REALLY came from and block them and or track them down? I sooo wish I had a program to automatically extract the person's address and spam them 1000 times over. Anyone write this yet?
You can't. That's the whole point.
28-Sep-2009
Posted by: Michiibelle at September 27, 2009 4:29 PM
Thank You, Leo! Your explanation was clear.
People that are in MY address book are being sent these emails in batch mode/CC.
Question:
1. Without my password to my account, how do they get access to MY email address list? Some of these addresses are ancient, yet still good.
It is especially annoying to find that these 'addresses' and the tag I gave them are being sent to multiple people. I always use BCC to avoid 'giving out' addresses, which I consider common courtesy, and hopefully avoids the violation of identity of sorts. I feel like a leper now!
2. When can I hope for this to end? I'm deleting 70 or so notifications daily - in addition to knowing it's still happening - someone is monitoring this for me.
3. What Email software would you recommend? Or simply avoid HotMail?
In order to completely avoid spammers to send email that looks like you it requires a big improvement over the actual mail protocol.
In Italy (the land of the spoofers) they came out with a new mail protocol called certified mail you can read more about it here:
www.openpec.org/eng/index.shtml
This new protocol does not allow spoofing anymore. Unfortunately it's something that has been adopted only in Italy so far, and I wonder if anyone else in the world will ever feel the need for this. The protocol must be adopted on both sides to work.
I'm actually working for a company that sells this so called certified mail: Poste-Certificate.it - PEC aziende It's interesting, but very burocratic as everything here.
Posted by: Giorgio at November 11, 2010 8:07 AM
Hi Leo, what you say is dead on. I get emails to my Spamfighter box all the time which are so called "returns" to me i.e. bounce backs, however I did not send them. As an experiment I set up a "spoof" account on my Thunderbird programme. I used a legit AOL account belonging to me and used a totally false name. I then sent myself an email and sure enough, I got the false name and my AOL email account. The only problem is the ones I get on my Thunderbird programme often end up in the Spamfighter box. Does this mean that my address is being blocked by Spamfighter ?
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Think of the "from" line of an e-mail as nothing more than the return address on a snail-mail envelope. Nothing stops me from writing someone else's name and address, and the mail will still go through.
Posted by: Ken B at May 5, 2008 8:46 AMYour blog is interesting!
Posted by: Alex at August 16, 2008 3:25 AMKeep up the good work!
Presumably this means I should be careful about adding such spam emails to my spam filter's list of spam addresses. I do occasionally send emails to myself, and I don't want to block these.
Posted by: John Sinclair at November 10, 2008 5:35 PMI get high importance mail from my self, stating "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)" the picture then advertise medicene and link takes me to Canadian Pharmacy. How do I prevent the spamers from doing it to me and how do I stop it?
Posted by: Alma van der Poel at December 14, 2008 1:40 PMThe best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you
Posted by: Kelly Brown at June 12, 2009 5:49 PMThe best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you
Posted by: JaneRadriges at June 13, 2009 6:07 PMOK, so I completely understand that anyone can write anything in the "from" line, what I need to know is HOW do I block them when the from is my own address that they put in, and not theirs? I send myself emails all the time so I can print on another level of my home (to another imac) so I don't want to block myself, What I'd like to know is HOW do I find their email? who it REALLY came from and block them and or track them down? I sooo wish I had a program to automatically extract the person's address and spam them 1000 times over. Anyone write this yet?
28-Sep-2009
Posted by: Michiibelle at September 27, 2009 4:29 PM
Thank You, Leo! Your explanation was clear.
People that are in MY address book are being sent these emails in batch mode/CC.
Question:
1. Without my password to my account, how do they get access to MY email address list? Some of these addresses are ancient, yet still good.
It is especially annoying to find that these 'addresses' and the tag I gave them are being sent to multiple people. I always use BCC to avoid 'giving out' addresses, which I consider common courtesy, and hopefully avoids the violation of identity of sorts. I feel like a leper now!
2. When can I hope for this to end? I'm deleting 70 or so notifications daily - in addition to knowing it's still happening - someone is monitoring this for me.
3. What Email software would you recommend? Or simply avoid HotMail?
Please shorten as necessary.
Thank you
2) You need to regain control of your account first. change your password and everything else.
3) Email software is different from am email service. EMail software: I like Thunderbird. As for email services I avoid free, recommend those with customer service, but if you must go free: Gmail.
04-Sep-2010
Posted by: Kathleen at September 3, 2010 4:08 PM
In order to completely avoid spammers to send email that looks like you it requires a big improvement over the actual mail protocol.
In Italy (the land of the spoofers) they came out with a new mail protocol called certified mail you can read more about it here:
www.openpec.org/eng/index.shtml
This new protocol does not allow spoofing anymore. Unfortunately it's something that has been adopted only in Italy so far, and I wonder if anyone else in the world will ever feel the need for this. The protocol must be adopted on both sides to work.
I'm actually working for a company that sells this so called certified mail: Poste-Certificate.it - PEC aziende It's interesting, but very burocratic as everything here.
Posted by: Giorgio at November 11, 2010 8:07 AMHi Leo, what you say is dead on. I get emails to my Spamfighter box all the time which are so called "returns" to me i.e. bounce backs, however I did not send them. As an experiment I set up a "spoof" account on my Thunderbird programme. I used a legit AOL account belonging to me and used a totally false name. I then sent myself an email and sure enough, I got the false name and my AOL email account. The only problem is the ones I get on my Thunderbird programme often end up in the Spamfighter box. Does this mean that my address is being blocked by Spamfighter ?
Posted by: Mike Castro at May 3, 2011 9:14 AMTo post a comment on "How do spammers send email that looks like it comes from me?", please return to that article's main page.