Spam Victim

[daniel]

Hi

Yesterday I received about 12 complaints from people who received a spam email. They hit reply and the email came back to me. I never sent this email and do not know anything about it. How could this have happened. Any help appreciated. I have attached the header and email:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: "TheInternet411" <[email protected]>,
Subject: Re: about traffic
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 02:46:51 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_004F_01C2A63F.B840CC40"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106
Content-Length: 16788




Hi,

If your traffic packages were really worth anything,
you wouldn't need to send out spam mailings like
the one below. Please remove my address.

Thank you.

Michael
[email][email protected]
http://www.bizzydays.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: TheInternet411
To: [/email] ;
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 2:16 AM
Subject: about traffic


Hi,

I thought you might be interested in purchasing some of our high quality website traffic:


# of Visitors Price
125,000 $62.5
150,000 $70
200,000 $88
350,000 $150
500,000 $200
750,000 $290
1,000,000 $380
1,500,000 $600
2,500,000 $1000
5,000,000 $1900
7,500,000 $2900
10,000,000 $3700

















All of our traffic is delivered by PopIns. You will get your own login to check your traffic stats in real-time.

If you are interested in purchasing some of our web traffic, please email us for payment info. We accept PayPal, money orders, and cashier's checks.

Regards,
WebTraffic411

P.S. If you would like to purchase large ammounts of traffic, we can maybe make a deal.

 

[Anthony Ng]

daniel, you shouldn't have copied the hundreds of VICTIMS' e-mail addresses here. This will only make them vulnerable to further ABUSE ...

 

[daniel]

My mistake, i will edit. Thought it would help track it.

 

[Anthony Ng]

No sweat.

 

[MusicWiz]

the person who is sending the emails is using outlook and has changed his email account settings . you can change the reply email address and senders email address ( basically it still uses the original senders email but hides it with someone elses )

a lot of spammers know this and it is a major problem .
the good thing though is that somewhere in the details of the email you will see a hostname ( email server ) and an IP address. these can always be traced back to the sender keep hold of the email as you can use it to find out the perpertrator.

there are some organisations you can report this kind of abuse to .. can anyone else help this person with some anti spam organisations please ?

hope this helps daniel

 

[daniel]

Thanks Musicwiz you are right, my email address was used as the sender of the spam. I am now receiving complaints from all of this persons spam list. I think they know its not my IP the spam came from but when the victims hit reply to the spam I am getting the emailsb

 

[MusicWiz]

can you send me an email you recieved .. i'll find out the original IP and hostname for you

open up an email you recieved . click details and copy everything into a .txt file

send to [email protected]

i'll see what i can do for you

 

[DomainPairs]

You need to ask yourself why it is being sent. If it is malicious, then you will need to try to find out the perpetrator. If it is a virus then you will need to contact the infected computer owner.

Viruses use random reply and return addresses and attach themselves to valid stored emails. It won't be your computer that has the virus in this case.

Note that a bulk mail server can modify anything and use of a proxy can conceal the ip address. This is how the spammers get away with things.

 

[MusicWiz]

using a proxy doesnt hide all IP's if you know how to get round them & the proxy can still be bypassed to get the original IP ( if you know how )

+ a bulk mail server never hides the originators IP .. i should know i used to send over 50'000 per week and got caught and fined 2 years ago

 

[Shiftlock]

Originally posted by MusicWiz
using a proxy doesnt hide all IP's if you know how to get round them & the proxy can still be bypassed to get the original IP ( if you know how )

I don't know how you can make such a statement. If a proxy server doesn't keep logs, there's no way to tell who connected to it. The only IP you'll see is that of the proxy server.

 

[MusicWiz]

Originally posted by MusicWiz
using a proxy doesnt hide all IP's if you know how to get round them & the proxy can still be bypassed to get the original IP ( if you know how )

what does the quote say ???? IF YOU KNOW HOW.

all proxy servers keep logs. so you cant say they dont because they do.
they keep a list of all the IP's , computer names , usernames that have connected to it.

the only problem is it all depends on how long the logs are kept for... which is why if the sender was using a computer behind a proxy its important to get it sorted as quuickly as you can .

 

[DomainPairs]

How are you going to get the logs off a russian proxy?

And what if it's not an isp, but a spam server?

That's why I said that I think the question to ask is why it's happening.

 

[Shiftlock]

Originally posted by MusicWiz
all proxy servers keep logs.

I've configured many proxy servers that don't write log files. The server sitting next to my left leg is running a proxy that doesn't keep logs. I would say a good number of proxy servers don't keep log files. Some are specifically configured not to keep log files because the servers exist to provide untraceable anonymous access, and log files would be contradictory to that purpose. A quick web search will turn up many such services.

 

[MusicWiz]

true domainpairs.

we dont know that the sender is behind a proxy and until i get the hostname or IP i cant use the program i wrote and have fun with the IP

anyway ive gotten bored of this thread.

if you want any help daniel .. you know where i am just send me a PM

 

[MusicWiz]

you may be right shiftlock and im not arguing with you . its just that all the proxy's ive had to get past for my old job they all kept log files

 

[mole]

Hey guys, it's really very simple. You just configure your reply-to email settings to anyone you want to get the sh*t for your spam. Even a dork can do this. You don't need to be a geek to understand this stupid flaw in the internet email protocol.

Malicious spammers often do this to Joe-Job people that they have something against for whatever reason. Its so simple to do, its absurd.

Which is why, spamming needs to be outlawed by all countries and spam criminals sent to jail as a deterrent.

As you know this will not happen.

If you want to track the originating source of the email, use http://www.spamcop.net. Their scripts are getting better in ferreting out the false trails spammers leave as a matter of fact.

Spammers are like hackers, they destroy the good and trust in the internet without any sense of ethics. They destroy the credibility of legitimate email marketers, since everything unfamilar is now treated with paranoia and suspicious because of excessive and ridiculous amounts of spamming activity.

As it stands today, we are ALL vulnerable to Joe-Jobs. Sorry, there is NOTHING you can do about it. Except, to join the growing anti-spam community and make life tough for these misfits in society who are nothing more than prostitutes looking for the next Joe to make money.

 

[Shiftlock]

Originally posted by mole
Spammers are like hackers, they destroy the good and trust in the internet without any sense of ethics.

Ouch. I agreed with everything you said up until this point. I have an issue with your definition of hackers. A true hacker does not do what you say. Hackers explore technology and learn from it. You may be referring to people who use computers and technology to commit theft. In my opinion, these people are not hackers any more than a mugger who uses a gun is a marksman.

 

[DomainPairs]

Mole

It wasn't the reply to addy we were discussing, it was the return to addy. They aren't always the same.

 

[daniel]

Thanks for all the help with the spammers. I found a decent url to look up ip's and get the host to report the abuse. Not sure if there are any better sites, but this one gave several options to search:

http://network-tools.com

Daniel