Email delivery failure notices

[lewmur]

In the last few weeks I been getting a lot of email delivery failure notices for emails I haven't sent. There will be somebody else's name, with my email address, as the sender. Typically, the subject line will be an inquiry about vitamins, medicine or viagra. Is this some new form of spam? Happening to anybody else?

[Urmas]

Drat.The most likely explanation is that your email addy is being used by a spammer. Nothing new in that... and precious little you can do about it.You might want to do a look-around... Google your email addy "lew@provider.com" and see if that returns any funny stuff. Go to http://www.stopforumspam.com/ and see what it says about your addy.

[Guest LilBambi]

Good idea Urmas...always good to check your yourself on Google every now and again.

[lewmur]

Drat.The most likely explanation is that your email addy is being used by a spammer. Nothing new in that... and precious little you can do about it.You might want to do a look-around... Google your email addy "lew@provider.com" and see if that returns any funny stuff. Go to http://www.stopforumspam.com/ and see what it says about your addy.

Googling myself just leads right back here to BATL. I don't see what good using my email address as a "reply to," would do anyone and the address they are using is a "hosted" one. IOW, it is just an address that gets forwarded to my real address. So no one could be using my real account to be sending messages. And its not like I'm getting replies from any of these co.s. I only get the "failure to deliver" messages. I'm baffled. :">

[Urmas]

What? Nobody wants to buy Viagra from you? "You" must've got stuck in their spam filters. There most likely is an "ORDER! HERE! NOW!" linky and/or email addy – not your addy, obviously – in the spam email body.

E-mail spoofing is the forgery of an e-mail header so that the message appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Distributors of spam often use spoofing in an attempt to get recipients to open, and possibly even respond to, their solicitations.

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefi...i840262,00.html

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Sounds like you email addy was spoofed, Lew.

[lewmur]

Sounds like you email addy was spoofed, Lew.

That's obvious. The question is how and why? If I were getting a bunch of v ads as responses to spoofed inquiries, it would make a little sense. But all I'm getting are "failure to deliver" notices. What good does that do anyone?And my main question remains. Has anyone else had it happen? I don't mean have you had your email address spoofed. I mean getting a bunch of "failure to deliver" notices.

[Guest LilBambi]

Just about everyone gets them once in a while. Spammers try different combinations to create their spam with various legitimate domains. It's called Backscatter:

Backscatter (also known as outscatter, misdirected bounces, blowback or collateral spam) is incorrect automated bounce messages sent by mail servers - typically as a side-effect of incoming spam.Recipients of such messages see them as a form of unsolicited bulk e-mail or spam since they were not solicited by the recipients, are substantially similar to each other, and are delivered in bulk quantities, and systems that generate e-mail backscatter can end up being listed on various DNSBLs and be in violation of internet service providers' Terms of Service.Backscatter occurs because worms and spam messages often forge their sender address, and naively configured mailservers send a bounce message message to this address.CauseAuthors of spam and viruses wish to make their messages appear to originate from a legitimate source to fool recipients into opening the message so often use web-crawling software to scan usenet postings, message boards, and web pages for legitimate e-mail addresses.Due to the design of SMTP mail, recipient mail servers receiving these forged messages have no simple standard way to determine the authenticity of the sender. If they accept the email during the connection phases then, after further checking refuse it - for example because they believe it to be spam they will use the (potentially forged) sender's address to attempt a good-faith effort to report the problem to the apparent sender.Mail servers can handle undeliverable messages in three fundamentally different ways: * Reject. A receiving server can reject the incoming e-mail during the connection stage while the sending server is still connected. If a message is rejected at connect time with a 5xx error code then the sending server can report the problem to the real sender cleanly. * Drop. A receiving server can initially accept the full message, but then determine that it is spam, and quarantine it - delivering to "Junk" or "Spam" folders from where it will eventually be deleted automatically. This is common behaviour, even though RFC 5321 says: "...silent dropping of messages should be considered only in those cases where there is very high confidence that the messages are seriously fraudulent or otherwise inappropriate..." * Bounce. A receiving server can initially accept the full message, but then determine that it is spam or to a non-existant recipient, and generate a bounce message back to the supposed sender indicating that message delivery failed.Backscatter occurs when the "bounce" method is used, and the sender information on the incoming e-mail was that of an unrelated third party.

[amenditman]

Does your email server/service send your mail using secure protocol https or the plain text http.If http, then everything you send is there for anyone to intercept and glean for spam info.

[lewmur]

Does your email server/service send your mail using secure protocol https or the plain text http.If http, then everything you send is there for anyone to intercept and glean for spam info.

Nothing "secure" is ever sent using that email address. One more time. I'm know the address has been spoofed. I don't care about that. It is the way it is being used that has me puzzled. I want to know if anyone else has experienced the "failure to deliver" symptom.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

It's because the spammer has sent out thousands of emails using your spoofed address as the legit address, so when his mail gets a bounce notice, it goes to your email addy. Yes, I've been spoofed before... many years ago on Yahoo. I received Failure Daemon notices for weeks afterwards. I also received some really nasty emails from folks asking me to stop sending them SPAM. I tried to explain to the first couple. It was a waste of time. I petered out eventually.

[goretsky]

Hello,Actually, a very old form of spam. The actual spam is the "bounced message" sent by the spammer to you. It was used for quite a while when spammers figured out some popular early anti-spam tools automatically whitelisted any bounced messages.Regards,Aryeh Goretsky

[lewmur]

It's because the spammer has sent out thousands of emails using your spoofed address as the legit address, so when his mail gets a bounce notice, it goes to your email addy. Yes, I've been spoofed before... many years ago on Yahoo. I received Failure Daemon notices for weeks afterwards. I also received some really nasty emails from folks asking me to stop sending them SPAM. I tried to explain to the first couple. It was a waste of time. I petered out eventually.

Ah,Eric, but there in lies the rub! I'm not getting any responses from the recipients. Angry or otherwise. I think Andrew's post after yours is a more likely scenario. That it is spam directed at me designed to avoid spam blockers. If so, it may avoid the blocker but it certainly isn't effective. Merely annoying.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

In this day and age, you'll rarely get a reply from and irate receiver of SPAM. Most folks know better than to bother. Regardless of what happened to you, sounds like a pain in the rear echelon. I wouldn't be too happy if it was happening to me. ALL SPAMMERS should have their genitalia rot off in a slow and excruciatingly painful way... then DIE!

[Frank Golden]

In this day and age, you'll rarely get a reply from and irate receiver of SPAM. Most folks know better than to bother. Regardless of what happened to you, sounds like a pain in the rear echelon. I wouldn't be too happy if it was happening to me. ALL SPAMMERS should have their genitalia rot off in a slow and excruciatingly painful way... then DIE!

That's appropriate, Eric since most spam is sex related (Viagra etc.).

[amenditman]

EricDon't you mean The genitalia shall turn many strange colors, swell, leak puss, then fall off in a very long, agonizing process.Frank GoldenI've been getting 'You'll be lots sexier if you have a cheap knock off designer watch' Spam lately.

[lewmur]

In this day and age, you'll rarely get a reply from and irate receiver of SPAM. Most folks know better than to bother. Regardless of what happened to you, sounds like a pain in the rear echelon. I wouldn't be too happy if it was happening to me. ALL SPAMMERS should have their genitalia rot off in a slow and excruciatingly painful way... then DIE!

The original emails were supposedly sent to people who SELL the stuff and asking for info. If ANY of the messages were getting through, don't you think the sellers would be jumping at the chance to sell me their product? I think it is much more likely that it is the "failure to deliver" notices themselves that are fake.

[patio]

I think Aryeh has gotten it right...