returned email using my email address

[JoyDee]

My email box is loaded with "Returned and Undelivarable Messages" using my
email address as the sender. Some are in foreign languages. How can I
prevent someone from using my emaill address to send out mass spam email? My
anti-virus and spyware programs do not seem to help.

 

[Allan]

My email box is loaded with "Returned and Undelivarable Messages" using my
email address as the sender. Some are in foreign languages. How can I
prevent someone from using my emaill address to send out mass spam email?
My
anti-virus and spyware programs do not seem to help.

Have you tried changing the password for the email account? It may be saved
in your email client also.

 

[Leonard Agoado]

My email box is loaded with "Returned and Undelivarable
Messages" using my
email address as the sender. Some are in foreign languages.
How can I
prevent someone from using my emaill address to send out mass
spam email?

You cannot. This is no different than someone putting your
return address on an envelope and dropping it in a postal box.
If it gets 'returned to sender' it's headed to you.

My anti-virus and spyware programs do not seem to help.

That's because the problem does not reside on your machine. Your
delete key is your best tool.


Len Agoado
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Malke]

My email box is loaded with "Returned and Undelivarable Messages" using my
email address as the sender. Some are in foreign languages. How can I
prevent someone from using my emaill address to send out mass spam email?
My anti-virus and spyware programs do not seem to help.

You can't. A spammer might have gotten your address because your email
address is in a friend's addressbook on the friend's infected computer. Or
you might have clicked on a spam message (sending an "unsubscribe" message
to a spammer just lets them know they have a live email address). Or you
may have given your email address to a company without a good privacy
policy, or an evil company that lied about their privacy policy. Your own
computer might even be infected and now the spammers have your address.

All you can do is:

1. Make sure your computer is virus/malware-free so you know you're not
guilty of sending spam.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

2. Get rid of that email address and be more judicious about giving out a
new one. Use a "throwaway" free email account for junk.

3. Use spam filtering, both at the web server and at your email client if
you use one. You don't usually have any control over the spam filtering
done on your web server except to turn it on and possibly have white/black
lists.

Here are some links to help you understand spam and what you can do to limit
your exposure to it:

http://www.spamlaws.com/
http://www.mall-net.com/spamfaq.html

General Internet security links that are aimed at end users - use their
Search capability to look for articles on those sites about spam since
there are many useful ones:

http://www.getsafeonline.org/
https://www.mysecurecyberspace.com/
http://www.getnetwise.org/

HTH,

Malke

 

[Mick Murphy]

Spam bots come here; you supplied YOUR email address to them, lol!

 

[Leonard Agoado]

message

Spam bots come here; you supplied YOUR email address to them,
lol!

Mick,

Well, yes and no.

My understanding is that bots generally harvest from message
header fields, not text bodies. All that obfuscation of email
addresses in the message body is a cute trend with little benefit
other than the appearance to the uninformed that the poster knows
something.

In any event, I used to munge my address and finally quit.
I've posted this way for years and have never found spam to be a
major problem.

Regards,

Len Agoado
(e-mail address removed)