I received three e-mails from a “Jackdadog” or “Jim Williams” concerning benefits to illegals. My Virus scanner immediately stopped a virus trying to get on my computer when this e-mail came in as well. I immediately deleted them.
I would not be sure if this is a scumbag who got hold of a list of our e-mails somehow or if one of our members had his e-mail list hacked. I could tell that the e-mails came from FAOL members though so beware.
Just thought I’d mention it - I figure admin might be interested.
I got three of those benefits for illegals messages today, each using a different sender name --no names I recognized. I deleted them while they were still on my ISP’s server so don’t know if they had a virus or not.
I use a great program called MailWasher to handle my spam. I use the pro version, but there’s a free on that only handles one e-address. This program lets you see and preview e-mail in your in-box at your server and delete the stuff you don’t want. It has other fetures as well. I highly recommend it to anybody who gets a lot of spam.
I recieved the same emails. I know one of the senders is no scumbag. After I recieved the first email from him I shortly after recieved a second email saying he had found out it was a bogus petition with an apology. I also recieved an email from Jackdadog concerning the same petition with a link on it at the bottom of his email to snopes dot com stating it was a fraud and had been going around for a few years. So far I have had no problems with any virus.
I didn’t think it was one of us but our computers can get hijacked to send e-mail we don’t want sent. There are great Virus & Spam programs out there but things still get by sometimes.
my favorite is when I get spam from myself, I know it isnt my computer sending it out. the spambot just takes a name off the list and makes it look like it came from that address. best bet is just use a spam filter and beware of junk.
I might recommend everyone go to their control panel and turn off receive email from other users. If an FAOL member wants to email you, they can PM you and ask for your direct email, unless you want to be anonymous, then they can simply PM you. That’s the only way another user can send an email to you from FAOL - if you allow it. (or God forbid if we get hacked, but that doesn’t seem to be the case today)
Panfisher, check the raw headers of that message to see where it came from, in Windows you probably have to look at the email properties, as most windows email programs hide the raw headers that show you where the email really came from.
I would like to know if it came from the FAOL server so I can close that hole if it exists. Keep in mind this can happen 2 ways.
One: a bot gets in, and it searches methodically for all users that allow emails to be sent to them from other users. (this is slow and not worth the spammers time though).
Two: they managed to get your email from a post on the board or some other place out on the net. In this case ANYONE can forge a from address…
It’s very easy for me for instance to replace my From: header with say Santa Claus<jollyolwhitedude@northpole.net> or some such nonsense. The raw headers however will still show what servers touched it etc…
I was too quick and didn’t think. Already deleted before remembering I could learn from them.
I do believe it was a bot though. The way I could tell it came from FAOL was I noticed a number of names in the “Sent To” list I recognized from FAOL. As an example I do not know any “OhioTuber” from anywhere except FAOL. This guy was a true moron - didn’t even use “blind copy”!
My computer is up & running again, and yes, I got that thing too. As I will continue to do, I delete those type things without even opening them, & permanently delete them usually at the same time, so I don’t know where it came from. When I saw mention of my screen name, I first thought I was being made a “suspect”.
Mike
Folks as I’ve posted before it’s not hard for them to hi-jack your email account. I’ve been hit on my yahoo one and cancelled it immediately and started a new address, couldn’t figure out why my Internet got turned off cause I had just restarted service and three days later it’s shut off??? WTH??? my ISP folks told me that in those three days my email had been used to SPAM out over 100,000+ emails!!!
I also made sure to inform everyone with a post here not to send anything to that old address.
I don’t post my email and even for ebay I have a separate free email account just for that.
Weekly maintenance on your machine will save you alot of headaches, trust me I know.
Yet another headache courtesay of Microsoft. Weekly maintenance. There is no such animal in Mac world. We need one of those emoticons where the one smiley guy is poking the other one with a stick…insert here…
That newest Mac commerical with Patrick Warburton is a perfect nutshell version of your problem :lol:
I personally have a mac mini on my desk at home.
My laptop however is Vista 32 (soon to be Windows 7).
My work computer is Linux (Ubuntu to be specific).
Oh and I run vmware with virtual machines on my laptop now with Ubuntu, XP, and a beta of Windows 7.
I like aspects of them all. I hate aspects of them all.
Linux is the best SERVER choice.
Mac will probably take over the world, it really is better…
BUT… Until more businesses are aware of that PC’s will rule; because at the end of the day if a business wants to upgrade PC’s they are usually locked in to Windows because program X does not support Mac.
It’s the old beta vs vhs debate.
It doesn’t matter what is better, it matters what the masses go for.
Besides. YOU PAY DEARLY for that Mac stability. The hardware is a whole lot more expensive. And when it gets popular enough the bad guys will start to seriously target the Mac/Unix platform. Half of the reason Mac is not a big target is that it is not financially viable to go after them (yet).
Ok, The REALLY sad part is, I understand every word of this! But then again I am a geek by profession (Unix Guru).
Actually it’s really not that bad for PC’s users if you follow a few basic guidelines:
-Use of a Personal Firewall (upgrade from what comes with windows) is an absolute MUST with high speed/always on Internet. I use free Zone Alarm
-Anti Virus software with automatic update feature. I use free AVG. NOT using it is like hiking in the desert in the nude. You WILL get burned.
-Spy ware protection. I use free Spy ware Blaster. This inoculates your systems and PREVENTS spy bots from taking root. This is the general cause of your email account being hijacked as a SPAM server.
The Spy Ware Blaster does not have automatic updates (you have to do it, but only take a minute or two), but AVG & Zone alarm does.
If none of this means anything to you about the Internet, my professional opinion and recommendation is to either take a local class on the fundamentals of computers on the Internet or call your neighborhood computer shop and ask for help understanding what you really need to know to be safe and protected. The majority of system’s infected and hijacked are the ones where the users is unaware of what they need to do to protect them.
Mark,
The honeymooners are not only back to earth…they’re FIGHTIN"!!! Seems that Ryan & his buds are into a weekly football pool that pays out about $45.00/week to the winner. They let Maggie in to “up the ante” & guess who WON this week after her new hubby refused to help her with her picks? I am still laughing my butt off!!! :lol:
Mikey
