Relay for spam?
Bill Stanley
bstanle at wowway.com
Wed May 18 19:31:10 UTC 2011
<<< snip >>>
> Who is your ISP? Do they supply you with a fixed IP address or a dynamic
> one?
>
> Are they basing this just on your email address being used for spam? Or
> is it you IP address? This is important because email addresses can be
> spoofed, so almost anyone can send an email 'From' you. If you use
> Evolution, go into Edit> Preferences> select your default account>
> Edit, then put ajp at princeswalk.fsnet.co.uk in the Email address box and
> you will be sending all your mail 'From' me. Its as easy as that! I
> know because I have one of the most comprehensively spoofed email
> addresses around, if the non-delivery notices I've been getting lately
> from various Russian email servers is anything to go on.
>
> I don't believe that your ISP would not be so naive as to think your
> email address alone indicates you as the spam source, so if the email
> from your ISP is not a hoax, then they must be identifying the spam from
> the IP address they have given you. So you either have an open proxy or
> a SMTP mail sever (which sends mail) set up as an open relay.
>
> A proxy server usually is set up so that people on the internal IP
> addresses of a network can access the internet. An open proxy allows
> anyone on the world wide web who happens to know your IP address to use
> that proxy server. (I talk from bitter experience!) Unfortunately, they
> don't just use it to browse the web (although it would be a way to
> access illegal pornographic content) but use various http commands to
> relay mail.
>
> By default, SMTP mail servers should not be set up to relay mail. So
> the mail server I administered only sent out mail originating from our
> internal IP addresses and not 'relay' mail from other external IP
> addresses. But SMTP mail servers are very easy to set up. Most Windows
> viruses that send spam have there own built in SMTP mail servers. Even
> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice has a built-in SMTP server to send its
> mail-merge emails.
>
> You can go to a site like SORBS (http://www.au.sorbs.net/lookup.shtml)
> to check if your IP address has been identified as an open proxy or an
> open relay. Sites like Spamcop collect spam emails from people to
> identify IP addresses sending spam and inform ISPs of them. They also
> have a black-list lookup at http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml.
>
> So have a word with your ISP and ask them on what basis are the saying
> you are a spammer. They should know if you are an open proxy or open
> relay. Let us know what they say so we can help you further.
>
I did check with my ISP and they checked the emails sent from my email
account and they said they found nothing was unusual. It obviously was
a hoax and the attachment, that I never saw was probably deleted by the
ISP, was probably booby trapped hoping that I opened the attachment and
this computer was a Windoze machine.
To answer your questions...
1 I use Wowway as my ISP.
2. I do not have a fixed IP number (The ISP probably uses NAT.
3. I have a couple email addresses associated with this ISP accounts
The email address I use for personal emails is not affected so I
suspect someone is spoofing the email address that I use on this
forum.
3. The email client I use is Thunderbird.
Bill Stanley
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