[Xtreme2damax]

There's been a great influx of spam on Gmail lately, and I am suspicious of something.

It almost appears a spammer is sending emails to my account from my account or some such.

The only time I get an email with the name "me" on it is when email originate from my Gmail account, when my sitemap generator sends an automated email notification from my website, and board emails originating from my website.

Normally any one else's emails have the proper name of the site, spammer, or person they originate from.

I've been getting a ton of spam lately titled "me" that originate from a spammer.

I haven't given this email to anyone lately other than using it to register at legit forums/communities.

I am too smart to fall for any Phishing scams or anything random that asks for personal details such as credit card numbers, social security, login or password information for any activities that take place online.

I use a secure alpha-numeric password with random characters to login to my Gmail account, which is over 15 characters long.

Here is a screen shot of what I'm talking about:

 

[Hard core Rikki]

Checked all header info?

 

[Spyhop]

You only need authorization credentials to check incoming mail, not for sending it. If you're sending using an insecure smtp server, which spammers do, they can claim they're whoever they want to be. Want me to send you mail using your address right now?

 

[gamefreak94]

I've come across a bunch of email spammers/bombers that allow anyone to send spam mails from any of the popular email services like Yahoo, Hotmail or GMail.

They also sometimes allow you to send emails from an address with a .gov suffix. And people get freaked out when they see spam coming from a .gov address :lol:

 

[Spyhop]

I've come across a bunch of email spammers/bombers that allow anyone to send spam mails from any of the popular email services like Yahoo, Hotmail or GMail.

They also sometimes allow you to send emails from an address with a .gov suffix. And people get freaked out when they see spam coming from a .gov address :lol:

Again, you can declare any address & name you want if sending through an insecure smtp server. There's no magic or hacks to it. It has nothing to do with vulnerabilities in gmail or yahoo or anyone else.

 

[Xtreme2damax]

So is there anything that can be done about it? I obviously don't want people thinking I am a spammer because these asshats decided to forge my email address to make it appear as if the spam is being sent from my email address..

Is there any way to see the real email address that the spam is originating from, any way to report this to Google for a possible solution?

I have been really careful with my Gmail address, I've never submitted my Gmail address to any shady websites, mostly using it to register at legit forums. Forum software usually never leaves the emails exposed for them to be harvested by bots so I don't know how they got my Gmail address.

 

[PCXL-Fan]

You should have a couple email accounts.

A private one for your real life, a semi private one for your buddies in the emu community.

and a public one that the noobs use that is sure to eventually get comprimised as all public ones tend to eventually.

Also don't sign up/resister for free/pay adult content sites unless your willing to risk your email box being spammed.

 

[Spyhop]

So is there anything that can be done about it?

Not really.

I obviously don't want people thinking I am a spammer because these asshats decided to forge my email address to make it appear as if the spam is being sent from my email address..

They won't send to anyone else using your address as it serves no purpose. They're only sending to you using your address.

Is there any way to see the real email address that the spam is originating from

Not in the way you're thinking. In terms of unsecured mail servers, smtp mail is not in any way tied to or affiliated with you're incoming mail. The only reason people reply to the correct address when you send mail to them is because you declared your address to be [email protected].

If you look at long message headers, you can find the IP of origin, but it won't do you any good. If you wanted to waste your time you could report it as abuse to their ISP, but they're almost always from countries who don't give a ****.

I have been really careful with my Gmail address, I've never submitted my Gmail address to any shady websites, mostly using it to register at legit forums. Forum software usually never leaves the emails exposed for them to be harvested by bots so I don't know how they got my Gmail address.

All it takes is for you to email a friend who's got spyware/malware on his system and, bam, you're on a spam list. It's almost futile man. If you have an email address, unless it's brand new, you're gonna get spammed. That's a reality of being on the webs.

 

[gamefreak94]

My throw-away Gmail address (which I give basically anywhere to all those pesky registration forms) has over 1,500 spam mails :lol:

 

[jmf146]

This might help you in the future if you are to lazy to deal with multiple e-mail accounts:
Revision3 > Shows > Tekzilla Daily Tip > Episode 63: Hidden Spam Filter in Gmail

 

[Cid Highwind]

My throw-away Gmail address (which I give basically anywhere to all those pesky registration forms) has over 1,500 spam mails :lol:

Me owns you: 3336 as of now :heh:

I've given up on checking my spambox, seeing how these messages don't last longer than 30 days in Gmail, it means about 100 a day. This used to be my primary e-mail, but I don't use it for anything personal anymore. Now it's degraded to a spambox which I use for online purchases and such. On average only twice a month a spam message slips through, so I'm rather impressed with their filtering.

 

[gamefreak94]

I've been using Hotmail for over 4 years now and only RARELY does a spam message manage to slip through to my inbox. On average, ~10-30 messages end up automatically in the Spam folder and I just empty it.

 

[Spyhop]

hotmail blows.

 

[gamefreak94]

Yet another thing we disagree on.

Hotmail > GMail > Yahoo! > everything else.

Besides, Hotmail/Windows Live is slowly evolving into something like Facebook, where people join each others networks, post notes, share pics/vids etc.

 

[Cheesus]

Yet another thing we disagree on.

Hotmail > GMail > Yahoo! > everything else.

Besides, Hotmail/Windows Live is slowly evolving into something like Facebook, where people join each others networks, post notes, share pics/vids etc.

Disagreed. Hotmail isn't particularly good (not rubbish, but not good).

Gmail > Yahoo! > Hotmail > Almost everything else

 

[Xtreme2damax]

Uh hotmail??

I agree that it blows hard, after marking a message as spam regardless of whether or not I mark it as spam several times, it still ends up in my inbox.

Hotmail has the nerve to block emails originating from my website/domain because of abuse/policy reasons, but they do absolutely nothing to block the actual spammers who are abusing the system from being able to send anything to Hotmail accounts.

 

[Xtreme2damax]

You only need authorization credentials to check incoming mail, not for sending it. If you're sending using an insecure smtp server, which spammers do, they can claim they're whoever they want to be. Want me to send you mail using your address right now?

It's not that, I found out what it was..

Somehow the spammers were able to get a hold of the email that is used for outgoing emails/board emails for my website "webmaster"at"domain.com" <-- (Not the real email)..

Any emails that are sent to "webmaster"at"domain.com" are redirected to my gmail account and typically show up as being from "me" and not the server/domain itself.

I finally figured what was going on when the title of one of the emails had "webmaster"at"domain.com" listed in the title itself, thus it became apparent as to exactly what they were doing.

Is there anyway I can stop this? My host uses Cpanel which has Spam Assassin and Box Trapper, I need to know what can be done to put an end to it and block spammers from spamming the website/webmaster email address..

Thank you.

 

[Spyhop]

Don't stress over spam. Do what you can without wasting too much time and move on with your life. You will never be completely free of it.