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Attention: We know that these emails are out there because since April 2003 we have received 'bounced' messages claiming to return emails which we have never sent. We assure you that we take spam seriously, please forward us a copy of any spam email you receive with full headers so that we may investigate the matter further and attempt to stop it. I have notified my mail and web hosts of this problem since I do not want them shutting down my site due to complaints from people who did not realise that the emails they were receiving were forged. The following section of text has been copied without change from http://www.robsworld.org/forgery.html <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< How can you be sure I wasn't responsible for the spam?: Every email sent over the internet contains information called header data. Some of that header data can be forged, some of it cannot. Spammers typically forge a large percentage of their header data. If you receive/have received an email (allegedly from me), I encourage you to examine the full headers. Most email clients (Software) have a 'show full headers' feature/capability. Examine the IP addresses in the header, you will likely find that much of the data is forged, and you will also find that the header data does not point back to me, my ISP, my web host, or my mail server(s). If you are unsure how to read/interpret the header data, I encourage you to do a little research. You can start by reading a brief tutorial on header data. So what should you do with this spam?: If you've received some of this spammers email. I'd ask you to do two things. First, send an abuse report via email, to the ISP that relayed the email to your email server/service. I guarantee it's not my email server/service. Secondly, send a copy to me. Please be sure to include the full header. As I stated earlier; the message content and headers are essential in tracking down the individual(s) responsible for forging my email address/domain, and sending the spam. What should you do about spam in general?: The simplest thing to do is just delete it. Replying directly to the forged From: or Reply-To: address is ineffective, as either (a) the From: or Reply-To: addresses are forged, or (b) your email address will be used to harvest a list of 'Working email addresses', which the spammer can use to optimize his or her operations, or sell to other spammers. What else?; Try to avoid loading spam in an HTML capable email client which automatically loads images. Spammers often encode your email address in the URL used to retrieve those images. By examining their web server logs, they can determine if you received the email, and whether you read it. For the same reason, don't click on any links in the email. Doing so will only confirm your email address as 'Live prey'! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some of the information on this page has been copied with permission from http://www.robsworld.org/forgery.html |