Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Spammers use many techniques to try and slide their garbage into your inbox. BCC'ing you on messages is one such way.
Why do I receive junk emails that are not addressed to my specific email address but to several subtle variations of my address? Why do these emails get delivered to my address when they are not addressed specifically to my address? And how should I most properly dispose of them?
•
Spammers are doing everything they can to get their garbage in front of you. And that means using and abusing every tool at their disposal.
One of those tools is something that's available to you and me when we send messages as well.
•
You were "BCC'ed" on the spam.
"BCC" for "Blind Carbon Copy" is a technique to send someone an email without their email address appearing on the message.
Typically, email programs have, in addition to the "To:" and "Cc:" fields, a "Bcc:" field that can be filled in as well. Here's an example in Thunderbird:
You can see that Thunderbird allows you to specify Bcc: as one of the addressing options.
In short:
-
To: is one or more direct recipients for the message.
-
Cc: is one or more recipients who also get the message. While the message is not directed "at" them, they also receive it. Often people use this as an "FYI" to others to see the message. Any Cc: recipients are displayed in the message on the Cc: line.
-
Bcc: is one or more recipients who also get the message. This is exactly like Cc: except that the list of people receiving the message via Bcc is not included in the message when it is sent. Upon receipt there's no way to tell who, how many, or even if any Bcc: addresses were used when the message was sent.
Because this comes up time and time again, let me be clear:
| Upon receipt there's no way to tell who, how many, or even if any Bcc: addresses were used when a message was sent. |
Spammers use this technique to send one message to perhaps hundreds of people at a time because actually listing all those addresses as Cc: or To: makes the message more likely to be flagged as spam. Since there's no way to tell when you get the message that Bcc: was used, the fact that it might have been can't factor in to figuring out whether or not it's spam.
And those hundreds of messages might well be what's called a "dictionary attack", meaning that they just try variations on email names with the hope that one or more will actually reach a real person. For example they might try "leo@", "leoa@", "leob@", and so on, on any of my domains. Some might work, some might not, but there's no added cost to the spammer to try 'em all. Most might well be hidden in the Bcc: that you can't see.
Ultimately, there's nothing you can really do specifically about this situation. Flag it as spam, if your email program supports that, and other factors and characteristics of the message will likely be added to the database of what looks like spam to you, and maybe the next one will get flagged automatically.
Article C3590 - December 12, 2008
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
When I first used hotmail, I got hundreds of spam,phishing, and plain con e-mails [ including money scams ] then I loaded the ACMA submission page in my favorites.Every time I got crap - I passed the whole page to ACMA [ located in Canberra ] Their job is to track these scum, arrest them and prosecute. It's been over a year now and I don't get any spam EVER!!!. And I don't even run any anti-spam programs; I guess when the federal police start knocking on doors, some people get the message :)
Posted by: John Neeting at January 11, 2009 5:47 AMI'm confused. The answer does not match my experience. When I get one of these spam messages...there is nothing in the headers to indicate that the message is meant for my account. However, when people BCC me...there are headers in the message to indicate that the message is meant for my account. So I still do not understand how I keep getting spam email in my account when no header in the message indicates that it is for my account?
Posted by: alpha omega at June 22, 2009 7:32 AMI read this article and also followed the link to "Why shouldn't I use the "Report Spam" or "Junk" button?" I have been getting emails every day from a source that I KNOW I have not subscribed to. Perhaps I could open these and look for an unsubscribe option, or perhaps I could open these and find I am now infected with a virus. I choose to not open these and add to my Blocked Sender List and Bounce Back To Sender. It does not appear to do any good, but makes me feel better. What say you?
Posted by: Tom Richards at December 13, 2011 9:00 AMMy span list has grown massively since I started using Facebook and I find my posts being reposted on other site pages. Can I sue FB??
14-Dec-2011
Posted by: walt perry at December 13, 2011 2:52 PM
Not particularly related to this question - Why is there a tab "Free Newsletter" sticking out and obscuring part of your news letter? (I have increased the web page to make it easier for me to read it!) I already receive your news letter!
17-Dec-2011