[JustWeave]

Someone is using my email address to send their trash to me and who knows who else. When I say trash I mean the kind that makes me blush.

At first things arrived in my junk folder as "MyAddy"@email.msn.com. This is my address minus the email dot part. I got two or three pieces that way. I never opened them just made a mental note that I had to look into this and deleted them.

Today the trash arrived in my junk folder addressed "MyAddy"@msn.com. That is the exact address I use and give to others. The subject content put it in my junk folder.

What do I do now?! How do I stop this unauthorized use of my address? How did this happen in the first place? I have current antivirus, firewall, and run spyware scans from time to time. What other personal info does this thief have of mine?! Help!!!

[weegot5kiz]

contact msn is one thing i might do and can you mark it as spam? just cause that address is in the title part doesnt mean its the return addy, I use yahoo, and other than spam here and there no troubles for all these years, Micro soft sure seems to be having a lot of issues lately from vista to their data bank being purged and messing with that security update a few months back. wish I had an answer, I was wondering do you have an acct where you need a password to sign in if so change it if it wont change contact MSN asap, might want to run a malware program and a virus scan for worms, mess me i can help you with the malware one its free and works good

[SandyC]

I would also contact MSN and ask about it. You may want to change your email addy and let your contacts know through a mass email.

[JustWeave]

Thanks for your input. I'll contact our carrier and see what they say. I'll also run an anti spyware program or two. I haven't used some accounts in so long I don't remember the passwords and don't remember for sure where I wrote them down. Guess I know what I'm looking for today.

[mrsD]

that some spammers copy your address using a program,
so it will not be blocked. That way they get in.
Sometimes the spam will only have part of my address in it.
Sometimes all of it.

I don't think you are "invaded"...I've had these now and then
and I think they are harmless.

I have an unusual name in my email, and sometimes I get
spams "from myself". Just don't download them, or open them,
or click on anything. I just delete them out.

[Jomar]

Many people don't realize that there are hacker /harvesting programs that can "take" your email address from any email you send into the internet.

Also if you forward or receive a lot of forwards with multiple addresses showing??
you can bet those are email gold mines for hackers and spammers.

Plus at many sites you may have signed up for things - and they will sell your email address..

[Here are some ways email addresses can harvested.

*

Email addresses can be harvested from posts in forums, Groups, guest books, News, blogs, IRC, chat rooms, instant messengers, email lists, and newsletters that publish or provide email addresses or where an email address is in your signature area.
*

Email addresses on web pages can be harvested by even the most mundane of harvesting software, whether printed as plain text, hidden in HTML tags, or in a mailto: link.
*

Email addresses transformed as HTML entities or obfuscated with other other HTML encoding schemes are easily extracted by even relatively unsophisticated harvesting software.
*

Email addresses in user profiles at web sites where they can be viewed by the public are also vulnerable.
*

Web page forms that require a recipient email address specified in a hidden field make spammers smile.
*

Printed material, like directories and magazine ads, are subject to harvesting.
*

Domain registration records can have their addresses harvested.
*

Email addresses in online white and yellow pages are almost certain to be harvested.
*

Email addresses embedded in images can be harvested.

We used this technique on our contact pages for a long time. Eventually, they were harvested, through several address changes. Whether harvested by sophisticated software, or manually, they got on spammers' lists.

Also, email addresses embedded in images are not available to blind readers and those using text-only browsers.
*

At this time, some JavaScript obfuscation methods seem to work pretty well as protection from automated harvesters. Yet, it can't be depended upon. The source code for parsing JavaScript is available on the Internet.

It's only a matter of time until harvesting software will be able to extract email addresses obfuscated with JavaScript, just like browsers do. They might already be doing it.
*

Friends' and business acquaintances' computers infected with specialized viruses or trojans can hand their entire address books to a spammer's computer — and your address may be in the book.
*

Replying to spam will either confirm your address or, if your From: address is different than where the spam was sent to, provide the spammer with another good address to spam.
*

Some browsers can be configured to specify an email address for use when logging into anonymous FTP sessions. They might also send the address as an HTTP_FROM header line when grabbing HTML web pages. The address can be harvested in both of those ways by the unscrupulous.

One solution: Specify name@example.com as the address — unless your browser has an actual email client built-in.

I know of no real reason to provide a valid address for anonymous FTP sessions or for the HTTP_FROM header line. In neither case is it normally expected that the address will be used to send you email.
*

In your email software, turn off JavaScript, Java applets, and any other active content that you can. Some of these, or the software they might install, might be used to send your email address, or even your entire address book, to a spammer.
a tip-
The Best Secret Email Address

An email account is a mailbox with an email address.

For best protection, the email address of your mailbox should never be used anywhere, for anything other than the identification of the mailbox.

Other email addresses can then be forwarded to the mailbox's address.

If the address of your mailbox falls in the hands of spammers, the address can't just be disabled like forwarded addresses can. Instead, a whole new mailbox needs to be created. All addresses that forwarded to the old mailbox now need to forward to the new mailbox.

It's a whole lot less hassle to keep the address of the mailbox secret. Email addresses that forward to the mailbox can be deactivated and new ones created with relative ease. ]
http://www.willmaster.com/library/tu...il_address.php
more info-
http://www.scambusters.org/stopspam/index.html
************************************************** ******************

I never use my main Verizon email address - i have other free email accounts and Verizon has sub accounts that you can set up so you can protect your main email address.

You can set your email program to kick out the junk for you.
We can help you find the information to set it up to do that.

What program do you use to access your email?
Outlook, outlook express, Thunderbird or another?
Or do you go to a web page online to access it?

and what operating system are using XP ? Vista etc?
That may not matter but just in case we'll have the info.

Does your anti virus program include any email/spam protections?
It might need to be set up if it does.
If so what kind is it?

[JustWeave]

Jo55- Thanks for all the info. I'll read through and try to digest it later. I barely know how to turn this combination frisbee and oversized paperweight (desktop not laptop) on so that may be a challenge.

As far as your questions go...

I don't know what the email program is. I just hop on the internet through verizon/msn and click on the Mail & More box on the top of my screen. Trash gets filtered into my junk folder while the rest goes in my inbox.

The operating system in windows XP.

My anti virus is Norton which has spam alert and says it is on.

[Curious]

I had that happen with my aol email once.

I called aol. They gave me an addy to Fw it to. Like the spoof addy's for ebay and paypal.

I never had the problem again.

But ti sure looked strange to see emails I had sent to myself. Almost like I was caught talking to myself.

[Jomar]

Ok , you go to an online website to read your email. {usually called web mail}
The other kind - uses a program to download your email onto your computer where you can read it -is called pop mail.

I use the verizon/yahoo email occasionally when I'm not using the pop mail program, or if I'm away from home.

Looks like I can't get into the verizon/msn side of things to see what sort of settings there might be...
I did do a search on "spam filter" here's what came up on the verizon site-
http://netservices.verizon.net/porta...Verizon+Online

here's the Norton website page that you can explore topics of email safety and more.-
http://www.symantec.com/norton/secur...ecureemail.jsp