help with spam

[Tony]

"Ari Torhamo" <ari.torhamo at saunalahti.fi> wrote in message 
news:1153055774.4985.16.camel at Ubuntu1...
> su, 2006-07-16 kello 10:41 +0100, Matthew East kirjoitti:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Recently, I have been experiencing a problem with a certain type of spam
>> which is taking up far too much of my time than it should. The symtoms 
>> are:
>>
>> 1. I get an email from the -devel and -doc mailing list bounces to tell
>> me that my email (from mdke at ubuntu.com) is too large for the mailing
>> list and will be moderated. I didn't send the message, and it is
>> normally something like "Fwd: Picture" or "Fwd: Sexy".
>>
>> 2. I then get two emails "Undelivered mail returned to sender" from the
>> the Postfix program at host fiordland.ubuntu.com which says "your mail
>> could not be delivered" for reason "Illegal attachment". These emails
>> are always to the same two email addresses: <jpatrickdavies at gmail.com>
>> (expanded from <jpatrick at ubuntu.com>) and <mhz.chile at gmail.com>
>> (expanded from <mhz at ubuntu.com>).
>>
>> I originally just deleted 2. and cancelled the email at 1. pending on
>> the mailing list moderation queue. However, this is taking quite a lot
>> of time because over last night I received 30 of such messages...
>>
>> Has anyone seen these before, and does anyone know if there is something
>> I can do about it?
>
>
> Hi Matthew,
>
> I've been getting this kind of messages from your e-mail address
> (mdke at ubuntu.com) for a couple of days now. I have recieved perhaps
> between ten and fifteen of them so far. One I saved has a subject line
> "Fw: SeX.mpg". I'm not an expert so I don't know what's going on here,
> but it seems obvious to me that my problem is related to yours.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ari
>
Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do about it.  It happens when a 
spammer uses your email address as a return address so you get all the 
bounced emails.  Often they just start using someone else's email so they 
eventually stop.  Sometimes (like some scroat that is using one of my email 
addresses) it goes on indefinitely.  It is very difficult to trace where 
they originate from because the spammers exploit open relays and use throw 
away accounts.