Mac email scam culprit?

bastion

I think I've noticed something sinister. Over the last couple of weeks one of my email addresses has been deluged with email scams, the banking details scam and the overseas relative leaving me money scam and loads of viagra stuff.



It just occurred to me that the timing coincides exactly with starting to contact a relative of mine via email. I used one of seven email addresses I have to contact him - only one other person has this email address and we've been emailing for years with no problems.



However, this new relative has a powerbook running panther and as he believes mac's to be completely safe from virus' and suchlike, he doesn't take any precautions when connected to his broadband.



I think it is more than likely someone has been able to tap into his mac and steal email addresses from his address book, becuase I've never been bombarded like this before with junk email.



I've only had about three items of junkmail in five years up until now. I've probably had 30 since contacting him and all are limited to the one email address of mine he knows about.



It may very well be that his mac is alright, but it's having a knock on effect on me.



Any thoughts???

chrisg

Its very possible that he forwarded you and a few other people the same message, basically your email is now on those other peoples computers and can be harvested.

kesh

There are no known trojan horse or spyware programs for the MacOS, so it's not likely the spammers got it that way.



Most likely, either ChrisG is right and the relative forwarded something to other folks who do have a spyware infested/virus infected machine, or someone else had access to his machine. The latter doesn't seem very likely, though.



It's also quite possible that you're the victim of "brute force" spamming. I've noticed that some spammers use software that tries totally random combinations of letters and words as email addresses, then sends a block of them to some ISP's email system. Eventually, one of those is going to hit a real email address... and thus, you get spammed. Their system can keep track of which emails don't bounce back and treat them as legit targets.

bastion

Thanks.



I've had six more this evening. It has in effect rendered that particular email address useless.

mr. me

Quote:

Originally posted by Bastion

Thanks.



I've had six more this evening. It has in effect rendered that particular email address useless.

How is it useless? Your MacOS X Mail client has an excellent spam filter. Use it. Put it in training mode. After a few weeks, allow it to run in automatic mode. The occasional spam message may still get through, but you won't see enough of them to worry about it.



Now allow me to follow-up on Kesh's point. Most of my spam at home is addressed to several subscribers to my cable modem service. My ISP never sent any mail addressed that way. My guess is that spammers acquired a list of my ISP's subscribers, possibly by breaching the users directory on the ISP's ftp site. I also get a lot of spam on my AOL account. There Kesh's theory seems to be the most likely explanation. My AOL screen name is based on my name. Much of the spam addressed to me is also addressed to screen names that are closely related to mine, but with letters in unlikely combinations.

bastion

Quote:

Your MacOS X Mail client has an excellent spam filter. Use it.

I don't have a mac. I'm on windoze 98 running zonealarm, avg, firefox and thunderbird.



It's my relative and his Mac that I believe has caused this problem. I email dozens of people on Windows machines but they all take the relevant precautions. He doesn't take any "because he has a Mac"!!!



I'm still waiting for that Jobs fella to get his ass in gear and do something about those iBooks! Waiting since February.

kesh

There's really no precautions to take on a Mac, since there's no software that can infect it (yet). About the only precautions are to make sure you're not passing along infected attachments, and using BCC to prevent someone down the line from getting your friends' email addresses. Sounds like it's the latter he failed to do or, more likely, you're just the victim of a brute-force spamming. What Mr. Me explained is exactly what I've seen.



You might want to look at the headers of some of that spam, and see if there's a bunch of CC's to addresses that are very similar to your own. If so, it's just cluster-spam.

bastion

Thanks. In response, no there are no carbon copies ? they are directed specifically at the one email address. Often there is no subject line and they are never from the same sender twice, not even remotely similar sender addresses.



I think it just goes to show that a mac USER can be the weakest link in an internet chain due to their complacent ?don?t worry about it, it?ll be alright? attitude ? one that Windows users simply don?t have.



Yes, it may very well have ended up on another Windows users computer, but it got there because this particular mac user didn?t consider the repercussions of their cavalier internet attitude because of the ?I?m alright jack? factor, who cares about you.



But you know, I?ll put it down to experience and give him a load of stick when I see him in person next week!!!

mr. me

Quote:

Originally posted by Bastion

Thanks. In response, no there are no carbon copies ? they are directed specifically at the one email address. Often there is no subject line and they are never from the same sender twice, not even remotely similar sender addresses.



I think it just goes to show that a mac USER can be the weakest link in an internet chain due to their complacent ?don?t worry about it, it?ll be alright? attitude ? one that Windows users simply don?t have.



Yes, it may very well have ended up on another Windows users computer, but it got there because this particular mac user didn?t consider the repercussions of their cavalier internet attitude because of the ?I?m alright jack? factor, who cares about you.



But you know, I?ll put it down to experience and give him a load of stick when I see him in person next week!!!

You are not listening. In all probability, this has nothing to do with the user or the user's machine. Antispam software is more sophisticated. Therefore, the spammers get even more sophisticated. Identifying the origin of spam and blacklisting domains that originate it is now a relatively old technique. If the spam directed at you came from the same sender or even the same domain, then it probably never would have reached you. Spammers are not stupid. They have developed techniques to acquire zombies and to use them to spoof other domains, possibly at random.



Look--if you have an email account, then you are at risk for spam. I have several accounts. One of these I have used once in the last three years or so. 100% of the mail that I receive on this web-based account is spam. Until this year, the only person who knew I have the account has not emailed me in the last several years. I keep no records of the account. My point is that none of the spam on this web-based account is due to a friend or family member being careless with my email address. As Kesh and I have told you, the best theory is that brute-force spamming is responsible.



You should have more faith in your family and friends. Don't blame them for your spam unless you have specific knowledge to the contrary.

dfiler

Assuming a friend is to blame for something bad that happened to ones' self, and then attempting to track down evidence to convict them?



That seems a bit neurotic. It reminds me of my schizophrenic friend when he is off his meds. (Not that we know you, just commenting on a parallel that immediately popped to mind.)

bastion

Moderator note: Insane nonsense and personal attacks deleted - JL