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| 5 FEB 2003 at 3:56pm |
HelenGuild Master
Posts : 3436
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Nothing as of YET Harriet, but thanks for the heads up.
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 4:11pm |
emmaPrivate Detective
Posts : 525
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I have recieved such mails, as I wrote in the off-topic forum. Although the mails has never contained my name specifically, they have been very "interest" specific. Like "Check out my new AG", "Adventure Games" , "Have you played this" and so on, with senders often known to me. The last ones, like the one from Ray and another with your name Harriet, I've sent to Randy already. I've started to save them.
It would seem that periodically I'm "targeted" and I receive loads of them for a week, and then it stops for months... Weirdness galore. I have absolutely no idea how one of those "borrow address books" viruses could figure out what to put in the heading!
[URL=http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollection.asp?alias=emma]My DVDs[/URL] | [URL=http://www.adventuregamers.com/]AdventureGamers[/URL] | I haven't lost my mind, I've got a backup on a disc somewhere.
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 4:19pm |
dimidimidimiSchattenjger
Posts : 1784
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Last week I received a mail from a sender big@boss.com that had the title 'Here are the samples you asked' and it was 86 kb big.
I thought that something was wrong there so I just deleted. It's just loosers in life who have decided to bring out their anger on the Internet because they could not get a girlfriend or sth...
PDF adventure magazine - The Inventory&&http://www.justadventure.com/TheInventory/TheInventory.shtm&&&&What would you give to know the truth?&&http://www.brokensaints.com
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 4:20pm |
| Deleted User | Creepy...
I've been starting to get those irritating emails from either companies in Nigeria wanting to fill my bank account with thousands of dollars, if I just give them my bank account number, and of poor african kids who have to resort to prostitution etc. to get money from food, but strangely enough seem to afford spending time on the Internet...
I NEVER reply to these emails, not even to tell them I'm not stupid enough to believe them, and I advise you not to do so either. Instead, I always write a message to the abuse@... address (or similar) of their email provider so they get their email account shut down. These messages are fraudulent and illegal, and even if no one will bother taking legal actions against these people, they will at least lose their email account, which gives me a warm fuzzy feeling of revenge inside.
I saw a cool website though made by people determined to let these scams backfire on the people behind them by starting long chains of discussions with these people and making them think they have fallen from it. A particularly successful thread went very far. The man behind the scam was fooled to send a photo of himself, and he probably even went to an airport in another Nigerian town to wait for his victim to arrive from the U.S. You can imagine the look of his messages once he realized he had wasted his time and money on someone too smart for him all along...
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 4:22pm |
Agustín CordesGuild Master
Posts : 5696
Joined: 23 OCT 2002
Location: AR, Buenos Aires
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Harriet (5 FEB 2003 3:51pm)
Several weeks ago I received a direct threat to my safety. If you have received anything like this please contact me directly and I will share the name of my evil message writer with you. We can compare notes, so to speak.
I'd be glad to know who is that writer.
I am also receiving emails from people I know (from previous communications or from this forum). I am unable to open them and was warned today that they are unsafe and/or damaging. And I was made aware that I am not the only person receiving these tainted messages. And even more confusing, they are not from the people who are supposed to have sent them. Someone is using the borrowed names and email addresses of real people. I am obviously lucky that I haven't been able to open the messages.
But this behaviour you describe I'm 99% it's because of a virus. Recently there has been a "boom" of these viruses that send infected files using the names in the address book of the infected mailing program. Most likely the person that is supposely the "sender" of those emails you received has a virus in his/hers computer. You should warn them!
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 4:24pm |
ValGuild Master
Posts : 3472
Joined: 2 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Lately I've been receiving large amounts of junk email. Same as some of the above people. Also have been receiving emails with attachments such as .scr files and such. It started happening 2-3 weeks ago.
We can be heroes, just for one day.
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 4:26pm |
emmaPrivate Detective
Posts : 525
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Heh, as I wrote this, I recieved a mail from Steven at Arxel Tribe no less... I virus of course... : But the heading was swapped from some other mail, you could tell, so it wasn't one of those target specific ones... Gotta mail poor Stephen and let him know I guess.
[URL=http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollection.asp?alias=emma]My DVDs[/URL] | [URL=http://www.adventuregamers.com/]AdventureGamers[/URL] | I haven't lost my mind, I've got a backup on a disc somewhere.
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 5:12pm |
NellieSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 359
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | This isn't JA related, but as somebody mentioned the Nigerian 'fill your bank account' scam, I thought I'd better pass this info on.
The scam has been going on for years, and people who have been foolish enough to go to Nigeria have been kidnapped and held for ransom. Some people have even been killed. A woman had somebody turn up uninvited on her doorstep in England (!) because of it, so she went to the bank with them under the pretence of drawing money out for them, then she and her bank manager told them to get lost or they'd call the police.
So going straight for the delete button is the best solution.
[b]£1bn -[/b] Amount British government has pledged to paying off debt of poorest nations over next 10 years.&&&&[b]£5bn -[/b] Amount British government has already spent on Iraq campaign.
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 5:21pm |
GayleSchattenjger
Posts : 2544
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | This is scarey. I never open anything I don't know, delete immediately.
Harriet, did you save the threating one and should you report it to someone?
Question though, I have hidden my personal email address here and I don't know how many others have done the same.
Are the majority of these emails being received by people who have listed their home address here?
Could whoever is doing it, find out your email address even if you have it hidden?
Oh, the Nigerian thing. I get one or two emails a week here at work and about once a month a letter. I wonder how many if any people have fallen for the scam.
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 5:46pm |
| Deleted User | I got an email from Bill Gates last week. Really! How scary is that...
No, I'm not lying. But it was a message sent to everyone on their mailing list, which I'm on to keep track of the news. It's not like I know him or something. But it had the bill.gates@microsoft.com address and all. Pretty cool actually!
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 7:40pm |
ElfstoneGuild Master
Posts : 5892
Joined: 4 NOV 2002
Status : Online | Tons of them.
It's a completely normal thing if you are surfing a lot.
Activate spam control of your eMail-service, that helps.
I usually don't bother with doing that, I just let them fly in my mailbox and leave them to rot there.
[b]playing[/b]: Destination Treasure Island (done in two sittings, but it's nice), Syberia (ho-hum), Dracula: Last Sanctuary (on hold)&&[b]reading[/b]: even more study papers&&[b]listening to[/b]: [url=http://www.last.fm/user/Brax82/]this and that[/url], plus [url=http://www.musicovery.com/]Musicovery[/url]&&[b]TV favorites[/b]: (currently) Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Journeyman (cancelled! grrr...), Heroes&& all-time) 24, Stargate SG1, X-Files, Lost, House
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| 5 FEB 2003 at 9:46pm |
Jenny100Guild Master
Posts : 3510
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Lately I've gotten more spam than usual.
Some had attachments, like an .scr or .bat file.
I've had several variants of that Nigerian scam thing.
I've had 2 attachments from big@boss.com - one was "here are your samples" and one was "Movies." The virus attached to the "Movies" email was actually discussed in the movies newsgroup because someone thought someone from the movies newsgroup had sent it (they'd been in a flame war). Obviously big@boss.com is not connected specifically to either games or movies but is harvesting email addresses from somewhere.
There are viruses that take email addresses out of the sent mail of victim computers and send out virus-laden emails automatically. Then if the message is refused by the recipient, the person whose email address the virus used gets a mailer-daemon message saying their message did not go through. And they are confused because they never sent that message.
I don't remember ever getting any email that directly threatened my safety the way Harriet described. Everything I get is generic spam of some sort - mostly people selling illegal stuff, scams, and viruses.
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| 6 FEB 2003 at 11:02am |
| Deleted User | I have lots of odd emails in my junk mail. But I chose the highest junk mail filter ,so all I usually get of the people in my address books are allowed to go into my inbox.
But thre's this one time, I got a letter from a guy saying really attractive words in the subject. So I tried to open the file but before I knoew it I was warned that there was a virus in the attachment. That's what I get when opening a junk mail.
Most of the time I just ignore my junkmail. So I wouldnt notice most of the time whether someone threatens my beloved computer or not.
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| 6 FEB 2003 at 12:38pm |
upcIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 77
Joined: 11 JAN 2003
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Petter_Holmberg (5 FEB 2003 4:19pm)
Instead, I always write a message to the abuse@... address (or similar) of their email provider so they get their email account shut down.
Does that work? How do you know which is the specific address to report abuses?
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| 6 FEB 2003 at 7:02pm |
| Deleted User | Usually the address is abuse@X, where X is the part after the @ in the message you got (e.g. hotmail.com or whatever). I always go to the website of the email provider first though (usually very easy to find) and check under their terms of use links or similar to see what address they want people to send abuse reports too. Email providers never wants customers that are using their service to abuse others, so it is likely that your message will result in a removal of that person's account. Just make sure that you attach the message you got, with full headers and everything to them, so that they can verify your report. Forwarding the message and adding a small comment about it should be enough. Don't waste time writing any long messages to them though, as you probably won't get a reply.
Thes hoaxers probably jumps between a number of free email accounts, making them hard to trace. Getting their accounts closed will probably not stop them, but at least you will know that you've made their job a little harder and possibly saved a few other people from similar attacks. By not replying to their message they will probably never have a chance to know that it was you that got them banned. They send out these messages to lots of people.
I've heard that the Nigerian fraud employs a number of people full-time at the FBI and in Nigeria. The number people who started this and are really dangerous are probably not that big though. There are lots of less serious "pranksters" from different countries that have just modified the original messages a little and are passing them on in a feeble attempt to make a quick buck themselves, or maybe just to annoy people.
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| 6 FEB 2003 at 10:12pm |
mszvPrivate Detective
Posts : 751
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hi,
I use spamcop to report spam. I use the free service Here's the link - http://spamcop.net/ . It's easy to use, and it figures out who to report the spam to. It also doesn't send my email address to the spammers, when it reports the spam.
I don't know if it helps, but I like to think I'm doing something, instead of just adding one more email (that will go away when the spammer gets a new one) to my blocked sender list.
Regards, mszv
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| 6 FEB 2003 at 10:45pm |
STooGE4444, EastCoastDoom...Schattenjger
Posts : 2099
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I don't get any of that...well, maybe I do but not to my school address. I filter tons of crap from my hotmail...my favorite spam is:
NO Agonizing Hanging Weights,
NO Tough Exercises,
NO Painful And Hard-To-Use Pumps, And There Is NO Dangerous Surgery Involved.
~rbeeler SVT &&Name's STooGE$$$$ Valpurgius TNT; it's not PLURAL&&[img]http://www.riseaboverecords.com/sleep/image/sleepfront.gif[/img]&&151.Generally speaking Sludge Doomsters are Angry, Gothic doomsters are sad, funeral doomsters are barely breathing, death doomsters are dirty, drunk and dribbling, Stoner Doomsters don't care, drone doomsters are out of it and traditional Doomsters are permanently pissed off, mainly with other doomsters
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| 23 JUL 2003 at 4:02am |
SusanGuild Master
Posts : 5485
Joined: 13 OCT 2002
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Thankfully, you can usually tell a SPAM message by either the person's e-mail address or the subject line - they all talk about the same stuff. Only those rare times where it look like it might be a legit message will I open it.
I just got an e-mail today that says someone has submitted a report on my e-mail address at word-of-mouth.org. I thought that was kind of odd. So I clicked on the link to see this "report" and all it says is "I have information." If I want to know anything more I have to register at the site and pay $20 so I can e-mail them with an anonymous e-mail. I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon.
I miss my Bubba: 1986 - 2006.
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| 23 JUL 2003 at 1:56pm |
Friday the 14thSchattenjger
Posts : 2908
Joined: 5 NOV 2002
Status : Online | It's true that you usually can seperate spam from normal mail, but sometimes it's not that easy.
Since I stopped using hotmail some years ago I've got less than ten 'wierd' emails.
Only one of them can be realted to this topic as the mail user shared first name with someone on this forum, but I think that's more of a coincidence.
Another thing: By using php scripts it's possible to send mails from someone elses mail address.
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| 23 JUL 2003 at 4:02pm |
| Deleted User | I'm glad that I'm not recieving any spams from my hotmail. The only bad thing is the people who isn't in my address book cant reach me. But I think I did handled it by asking everyone I know to get "all" of thier emails.
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| 23 JUL 2003 at 4:16pm |
| Deleted User | Since I assume that many of you shop on eBay and therefore have PayPal accounts, here is a heads up: For the last month or so there has been a hacker sending out what appear to be authentic emails from PayPal. The format and addy look real. These letters say that PayPal is trying to clean out old inactive users from their database and ask you to include various personal information including your credit card number and PIN so they can verify you as an active member.
These letters are fraudulent!
I have recieved two such emails, and called PayPal both times. They assured me that they knew about the hackers doing this, but were having trouble pinning them down. PayPal will never ask you for your credit card number once you have signed up with them.
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| 23 JUL 2003 at 5:01pm |
| Deleted User | I'd like to share a recent interaction with PayPal. I went to use it, after not using it for over a year, and the site bounced me to another page to verify my input on PayPal, since my card had expired. I updated it and when I finished my transaction, I found in my maibox an email from "PayPal" to go there to give them my info. I deleted this, assuming PayPal had sent it, but I had already been there and done it. Now I will always wonder if it was the scam or the real PayPal. This was about 3 weeks ago.
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| 23 JUL 2003 at 7:53pm |
sparkySorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 270
Joined: 18 JUN 2003
Status : Online | I heard a strange story about the Nigrean scam , i don't know for sure that's real but i heard from a reliable source so i tend to think it's true:
An old man in Romania recieved an e-mail about starving children in Nigiria. the E-mail asks for a 10$ contrebution than will be taken from your bank account if you provide it. th man fell for the scam and his account was drained. the man was so furios that he went ank killed the Nigirian ammbasdor to Romania.
i'd say that's pretty spooky if it's real.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exisit.
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| 23 JUL 2003 at 8:10pm |
MichalNGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7058
Joined: 14 SEP 2003
Status : Online | Originally Posted By sparky (23 JUL 2003 7:52pm)
An old man in Romania recieved an e-mail about starving children in Nigiria. the E-mail asks for a 10$ contrebution than will be taken from your bank account if you provide it. th man fell for the scam and his account was drained. the man was so furios that he went ank killed the Nigirian ammbasdor to Romania.
I don't know about that, but the Nigerian consul in Prague was shot dead in February 2003 by a 72-year-old man who had been scammed. That is a true story.
I forgot my sig.
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