Weird email.

choille

Today I received an email. The subject heading was Re:

The message said: Full letter sent to the police.

This was from a Clark Night who I have never heard of.
These last few weeks i seem to be getting an awful lot of spam & some of it comes in & it does not have my own email address. I do not understand how I can receive mail to my inbox that is not coming in on my email address.
This just seems weird.
My computer is only accessable by myself & Mr Choille & he cannot understand this either.
Should I be worried?

[Deleted User]

Not massively no. They spammers could have got your email address from anywhere or they could be generating email addresses and getting lucky on a few. Either way have a look at this thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1131677&highlight=spam

choille

Some of these emails are coming in to my inbox but they are not coming in with my address on, but one that must have been created - which is most perculiar as I have not changed my email address & neither has Mr Choille.
This is the bit that I cannot understand. It is as if someone has created other addresses for my email other than Myself or hubby, yet no one else has access to our PC - we don't have kids.

[Deleted User]

See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spoofing

choille

Sorry - I am not being clear here, but how can someone have created an email address for me?

Eg |When I click on the spam it says in the blue header from: Spam name & beneath the To: Is an email address that is not one that I nor Hubby has created. Is one that I don't know how I have got.

superjaggybunnet

Just delete it and move on.

It is not worth wasting time or energy over.

[Deleted User]

choille wrote: »

Sorry - I am not being clear here, but how can someone have created an email address for me?

Eg |When I click on the spam it says in the blue header from: Spam name & beneath the To: Is an email address that is not one that I nor Hubby has created. Is one that I don't know how I have got.

Did you at all read my link?! It tells you how they've done it...

choille

Yes I did read it & have just done so again.

I find it hard to get my head around the fact that they can actually make it appear that the email is not to you - not addressed to you the receiver. That's pretty cunning stuff.

I was worried that they could have maybe used my PC remotely.
As you probably can tell - I am not techie person. I was worried that they had maybe sent an email to some person - supposedly from my PC & I would have implications. Or that they had got into my PC somehow & changed my email address for causing grief & could even have ordered things that I have not ordered.

Thanks for you time on this. I did know they could alter where the email had come from, but was unaware that they could alter the address of the recepient on the header.

Why would they wish to alter the email address on the header? If you wouldn't mind explaining that one to a dim wit like me.

Thanks again.

macman

choille wrote: »

Yes I did read it & have just done so again.

I find it hard to get my head around the fact that they can actually make it appear that the email is not to you - not addressed to you the receiver. That's pretty cunning stuff.

I was worried that they could have maybe used my PC remotely.
As you probably can tell - I am not techie person. I was worried that they had maybe sent an email to some person - supposedly from my PC & I would have implications. Or that they had got into my PC somehow & changed my email address for causing grief & could even have ordered things that I have not ordered.

Thanks for you time on this. I did know they could alter where the email had come from, but was unaware that they could alter the address of the recepient on the header.

Why would they wish to alter the email address on the header? If you wouldn't mind explaining that one to a dim wit like me.

Thanks again.

It's not a conscious attack on you. The spamming software generates millions of random addresses, most fail because they are invalid, a few are genuine addresses and get through.

Lum

Here's an analogy for you.

I print out a letter addressed to Joe Bloggs in Swindon. I then put it in an envelope (without a window) and address it to Jane Doe in Aberdeen.

This is exactly what is happening here. The From: and To: headers in an email only match up with where it is actually sent if you are using a normal email client (ie. Outlook, Thunderbird, GMail etc.). email clients used for spam purposes often blast the same identical message (With incorrect From: and To: headers) to millions of email addresses.

When an email is actually sent, there is a protocol used called SMTP and this protocol defines how the sender and recipient are specified, and they're specified completely indepentently of the From: and To: headers in the message itself. For this reason this extra information is sometimes refered to as an SMTP envelope

This page probably goes into way too much detail, however under the heading "Rules and Rulesets" there is an example of sending an email that shows both the message and the SMTP envelope.

choille

I think I will read the link you kindly posted tomorrow when less tired.

Thanks for the analogy - that is clearer to my luddite/simple brain.

Cheers