How does this work , then ?

carly

I just received an email which purports to come from myself. Now i quite often send myself reminders of web addresses, " to do tasks " etc by email so I wasn't particularly surprised to see my own name given as the sender. I didn't open it ,but checked the preview and was surprised to see that it is spam. Along the lines of " reach 8000000 people evey week like this " advetise by email for non profit making organisations....

so how can I stop this happening again?

newmoney_3

It is very hard to stop spam getting through. I personnally use an online providor who has anti-spam built into their system, this means that I rarely get much of it (all sent directly to Junk email or Bulk Folder) and can access emails anywhere in the world.

Some solutions are to get yourself an anti-virus package that includes anti-spam. Don't want to recommend any by name, but most of the large players include this, but it will cost you.

Hope this helps.

Lord_Chris

newmoney wrote:

Some solutions are to get yourself an anti-virus package that includes anti-spam. Don't want to recommend any by name, but most of the large players include this, but it will cost you.

what crap...

most of the large players will cost you, yes, but they are crap and are not needed.

most anti-virus packages do NOT include anti-spam software, they scan your emails for viruses.

If you want something to protect you from viruses in emails, i'd suggest AVG free (https://www.grisoft.com).. its free, and its great. take a look at threads about free antiviruses on the techie board over the last few weeks... everytime somebody recommends AVG.

AVG and another free antivirus(cant remember wht its called) are way better than the 'large players' such as Norton and Mcafee.

As for filtering spam.. i've found that the junk mail feature on Microsoft Outlook 2003 is excellent... you just have to tell it what is junk and eventually it learns to detect junk on its own. Outlook comes with Office if you have it and you use POP3 email.

If you use webmail such as hotmail that often filters junk mail itself.

MercilessKiller

Chris...

To be honest, i've seen you in several posts flame other users. They are only trying to help, so stop being stubborn and stuck up.

And they are not all crap at all. Maybe the ones you have are.. but thats your experience.

leesmithg

They change the header, received one myself, binned it.

carly

wow, I didn't want to start a row here. I just wanted to know how they make an email look like it came from myself.
I am running AVG and i use outlook express but I still find lots of spam comes through.

Thanks guys .
Carly

MercilessKiller

Lord_Chris wrote:

AVG and another free antivirus(cant remember wht its called) are way better than the 'large players' such as Norton and Mcafee.

I'd be tempted to do a you.. "what crap..."

With norton, you get a lot more functionality out of the software that is usually un-needed for general home users, yet its there and thats why it is better than AVG. Cost wise AVG is better but upgrades are limited and not instantaneous compared to paid versions, and other features aren't there.

Yes I use free ones, yes i recommend them, but you should really open up your mind.

Cheaper is good, but it depends what your version of "better" is so its a subjective argument.

superscaper

carly wrote:

wow, I didn't want to start a row here. I just wanted to know how they make an email look like it came from myself.
I am running AVG and i use outlook express but I still find lots of spam comes through.

Thanks guys .
Carly

The one main flaw in email is that the sender can put anything in the return address, making it look like it came from anyone. I'm sure it would be too hard to spam lots of people and making the return address a copy of the address it is being sent to.

MercilessKiller

carly wrote:

wow, I didn't want to start a row here. I just wanted to know how they make an email look like it came from myself.
I am running AVG and i use outlook express but I still find lots of spam comes through.

Thanks guys .
Carly

Carly...

If you want to look like a geek search for message header options in the email you received Should be around toolbar options somewhere

You'll see a lot of random code and your email address somewhere around in the from field. Basically all the spam does is manipulate the message header when sending an email to you.

I for example could send you an email from josh@josh.com even though I don't own josh.com and for all i know there is an email address called taht but its not mine!

its a popular form of spoofing No way of avoiding it. I'd recommend starting all emails from yourself with REAL: then anything from yourself without that, you know is fake!

superscaper

MercilessKiller wrote:

I'd recommend starting all emails from yourself with REAL: then anything from yourself without that, you know is fake!

Very existentialist! "This is real because I say it is"

MercilessKiller

lol hush works for me :P