Can I report bounced mails if they forged the sender?

[Nicoletta84]

Wow, I have to say I did search and try to find the information on the forum before I posted this question, and I'm sorry but I just didn't really understand it in the end.

So please be patient and let me try to explain.

My father is receiving a lot of emails which are bounced back as failed messages from the MAILER-DAEMON at Yahoo. He has not sent the original emails to the recipient. Someone was using his email address. I'm assuming that they are genuinely being bounced by Yahoo and it is the person who originally sent them that is the spammer. My Dad uses a Mac and I don't think he has a virus (yes, I know it's possible).

In the header from one of the emails I saw that it said:

Received: from [iP Address A] (DadsName[at]IP Address B with plain)

When I looked up IP Address B it was a Russian ISP in Novosibirsk.

My questions are:

1) Does it help anyone (hopefully including my Dad) to report this information to SpamCop?

2. Do the SC rules allow me to report this kind of bounced forged email if it also reveals the real spammer (IF I am correct)

3. If yes, how and where do I report it and which parts can I include?

I really did try to understand this, but I failed. Sorry and thanks for your patience!

[rconner]

1) Does it help anyone (hopefully including my Dad) to report this information to SpamCop?

2. Do the SC rules allow me to report this kind of bounced forged email if it also reveals the real spammer (IF I am correct)

3. If yes, how and where do I report it and which parts can I include?

From what I can tell, some spammer has simply taken your father's address and put it into his outgoing mail. This is usually done to help the spammer's "deliverability" by providing a "realistic" return address. This is very common and has happened numerous times to many of us here.

The bounces you get in this way would be what are called "delayed bounces" and they reflect the fact that the provider who receives the original spam has not checked the bona fides of the message when it is presented for delivery, waiting instead to do this later (after there's no other recourse but to bounce the message back to the party who appears to have sent it). It's like if I leave a box of snakes for you at your office's mail room, and the mail room folks don't check it out before I leave. When you complain about the snakes, the only thing they can do about it is to send the snakes back to the return address on the package (which could be forged). If they had used a snake detector on the package when I was still in their presence, they could have thrown the box back at me and kicked me out.

So, to answer out of order:

2, 3. You can use SpamCop to report the bounce message back to the party (Yahoo in this case) that sent the bounce. This won't get you anywhere close to the original spammer, though--for that, you'd have to somehow pick the pertinent data out of the bounce and report the matter to the parties whose resources were used in the original spam. You wouldn't be filing these through SpamCop.

1. If your report helps convince a mail operator to come into full compliance with current anti-spam practice, then it could help all of us. Otherwise not so much.

-- rick

[Nicoletta84]

Many thanks for explaining all that Rick.

Any contact details handy for sending my rant polite suggestion to Yahoo?

From what I can tell, some spammer has simply taken your father's address and put it into his outgoing mail. This is usually done to help the spammer's "deliverability" by providing a "realistic" return address. This is very common and has happened numerous times to many of us here.

The bounces you get in this way would be what are called "delayed bounces" and they reflect the fact that the provider who receives the original spam has not checked the bona fides of the message when it is presented for delivery, waiting instead to do this later (after there's no other recourse but to bounce the message back to the party who appears to have sent it). It's like if I leave a box of snakes for you at your office's mail room, and the mail room folks don't check it out before I leave. When you complain about the snakes, the only thing they can do about it is to send the snakes back to the return address on the package (which could be forged). If they had used a snake detector on the package when I was still in their presence, they could have thrown the box back at me and kicked me out.

So, to answer out of order:

2, 3. You can use SpamCop to report the bounce message back to the party (Yahoo in this case) that sent the bounce. This won't get you anywhere close to the original spammer, though--for that, you'd have to somehow pick the pertinent data out of the bounce and report the matter to the parties whose resources were used in the original spam. You wouldn't be filing these through SpamCop.

1. If your report helps convince a mail operator to come into full compliance with current anti-spam practice, then it could help all of us. Otherwise not so much.

-- rick

[turetzsr]

<snip>

Any contact details handy for sending my rant polite suggestion to Yahoo?

...If you do find one, please do let us know! Many have searched for a way to contact knowledgeable folks within Yahoo in vain. <g>

[petzl]

Many thanks for explaining all that Rick.

Any contact details handy for sending my rant polite suggestion to Yahoo?

Just tell your dad to get a free reporting account at SpamCop,

I don't use a Mac but PC's have software which easily do this. I expect Macs to have similar

The best defense against spam is attack. Even Yahoo will act on SpamCop reporting.

Yahoo seems to be presently going through a bad phase which all major email host do, like Hotmail Gmail, when they seem to have everything fixed they then go down the same path again (and won't admit it because the "new" overpaid IT "expert" is probably the CEO's relative or similar).

[rconner]

Don't use a Mac but PC's have software which easily do this. I expect Macs to have similar

Oops, I assume you meant to say "I don't use a Mac" and not "You should not use a Mac."

In any case, there are some Apple Scripts floating around on the forum here (search on "apple" maybe) that will let you select a message from Apple Mail and bundle it up for submission to SpamCop. They do work (I have used one), but they do require a small amount of setup that should nevertheless not be beyond the ken of anyone who can use a text editor.

I will concur, however, that Yahoo seems right now to be very unresponsive to most complaints that I submit directly (can't say about those I submit thru SpamCop). We can only hope that things get better there, but for now if you are a crook who needs a few mail drops for your 419 scam i can recommend a good safe provider

-- rick

[petzl]

Oops, I assume you meant to say "I don't use a Mac" and not "You should not use a Mac."

-- rick

edited and fixed. Mac's are taking off along with the "hackware". So protect them times are changing you now NEED Firewall and "virus" scanners;

SpamCop often use special unique email addresses for Yahoo and most other major email providers. SpamCop is more effective than lone submissions