spam that shows my own address

[kmax1940]

We have been getting a lot of spam that shows it is coming from my own email address.

Of course it is not coming from me...

A lot of these emails have the same subject lines...

I log into spamcop and report them as spam...

And they just keep showing up in my inbox.

Anyone know what I can do about this?

I sent in a ticket to spamcop but have not heard back yet...

thanks

k

[rconner]

Anyone know what I can do about this?

I sent in a ticket to spamcop but have not heard back yet...

There is quite a bit of material here on this topic here, try http://forum.spamcop.net/scwik/FromAddressForgery for a start.

-- rick

[dra007]

I sounds like most of the spam I get this days. I could never figure out the purpose other than finding it extremly annoying. The simplest explanation is that it is another attempt to bypass spam filters as most people would whitlist themselves.

[Miss Betsy]

Another point: reporting spam does not guarantee that it will stop. Very occasionally spam comes because of a mistake made by a responsible server admin. The minute he sees the spamcop report, he fixes it. Unfortunately, most spam comes from irresponsible server admins who are either greedy or dumb or from the computers of ignorant computer users who have allowed their computers to be infected with software that sends spam. Reporting to the latter categories is futile since the server admins who are greedy or dumb either don't want to stop sending spam or don't know how to stop sending spam and the computer users who are infected do not receive email and never see the report.

You need to read a lot more about spam and how it works and how people combat it to understand why you are still getting spam with your address in the sender's space. Hopefully, you have understood from the other replies that this is common and nothing to worry about.

Miss Betsy

[Wazoo]

I log into spamcop and report them as spam...

You actually don't identify just 'where' you log into 'which part of' SpamCop.net.

And they just keep showing up in my inbox.

Anyone know what I can do about this?

I sent in a ticket to spamcop but have not heard back yet...

The phrase "sent in a ticket" might be interpreted as suggesting that you have a SpamCop.net e-mail account. (In the long run, it doesn't really matter, but ...) Please see the data posted on SpamCop Email System News .... specifically the 9 Dec entry.

[kmax1940]

You actually don't identify just 'where' you log into 'which part of' SpamCop.net.

I did not realize there different "parts" of spamcop to report to...

We pay a fee to spamcop for email filtering.

I login to their webmail and report the spam...

Yeah.. the "ticket" I opened never was answered...

They do not seem to be very service oriented.

Maybe because the fee is low... it is seen as a "do it yourself" solution...

We would pay more for a solution that comes with service when you need it.

Hopefully, you have understood from the other replies that this is common and nothing to worry about.

It is something to worry about when your company pays a fee to email filtering...

And your inbox is still filled with spam...

If it were a few a day I would not worry about it...

The phrase "sent in a ticket" might be interpreted as suggesting that you have a SpamCop.net e-mail account. (In the long run, it doesn't really matter, but ...) Please see the data posted on SpamCop Email System News .... specifically the 9 Dec entry.

Thanks for the tip on the whitelist.

I appreciate it.

My address was on my whitelist.

I removed it... hopefully that will do the trick.

thanks for the tip.

[DavidT]

Yeah.. the "ticket" I opened never was answered...They do not seem to be very service oriented.

Unfortunately true, especially when it comes to the email accounts, which is what you're talking about. Some tickets and issues seem to go unnoticed (or at least unanswered) for quite some time.

It is something to worry about when your company pays a fee to email filtering...

And your inbox is still filled with spam...

Removing your own address from your whitelist will help, but you should probably do a few other things. For example, in the webmail interface, go into Options, then SpamCop Tools, then "Select your email filtering blacklists" and make sure that you have ALL of the DNS blacklists selected, and that your SpamAssassin setting is 4 or lower (the default of 5 lets too much spam through). "Submit" any changes.

Then, go into the "Manage your email forwarding, password, mail report, and greylist settings" page and consider enabling "Greylisting," which many users have reported is quite effective in turning away the spammers. There are other greylisting options on the SpamCop Tools page.

Let's hope that the owner/operator of the email service makes a New Year's resolution to find a way to respond to tickets like yours in a timely manner. I have received responses in the past, and sometimes responses are posted here in the forums, but they're a bit few and far between.

DT

(BTW, I think it's been demonstrated that this is a SpamCop Email topic...perhaps a moderator will see fit to move it to the appropriate forum?)

[agsteele]

...consider enabling "Greylisting," which many users have reported is quite effective in turning away the spammers.

FWIW I can say that when I turned on greylisting the quantity of spam arriving in my mailbox each day dropped from hundreds to around a dozen and almost all of that is trapped in the Held Mail folder so in practice I see perhaps two or three spam messages in my inbox per day. So Greylisting is helpful provided you can cope with the slight delivery delay it creates for some messages.

Andrew

[waugh]

I, too, felt surprise when I first noticed this trend by the spammers. It would seem to work against their purposes. Pretty soon I added some filter terms so that mail sent to me "from" some of my public addresses would go into the folder I use for reviewing very probable spam before reporting it. I also filter into this folder on terms in the subject line, such as "rod", "instrument", "little friend", "virility", "manhood", "stick", "watch", "timepiece", and "we will call you back". Also, on addresses of mine that no longer have a legitimate use. I put the union of all that in that folder. A quick look through the subjects or in a few cases a tag in the "from" part (from Sneakemail) indicating which address of mine the spammer reached me through, catches any false positives from this filtering. Which brings up another interesting evolution in spamming practice. A while back, the subject lines of spam used to be just about all noise. Now they have gone back to laying out in the subject what they are trying to sell. This makes it easier for us, so I don't know why they changed course in that direction.

[Farelf]

...Now they have gone back to laying out in the subject what they are trying to sell. This makes it easier for us, so I don't know why they changed course in that direction.

Just part of the (non)"business plan" Jack, it essentially is often part of an "instant riches" kit deployed by people who can't make a real living. The majority of that spam isn't at all well designed, distributed or conceived nor is it optimized for effect (sheer volume is the lever). Rule #3 of Spammer Rules fairly-well covers it. Of course that protective smugness bids well to set the long-suffering spam-sufferer up very nicely to underestimate the occasional anomalous "targeted spam" which is carefully crafted, or the laws of probability which dictate that every now and then one of these things, co-incidentally or otherwise, just ticks all the right boxes to slip right under the guard with (trust Murphy's Laws) some sort of "zero-day" exploit. As Sun Tzu sort of said "know your enemy" and as numerous others would have it, "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance".