Free Computer Consultant ………. Daily Insights

The real Federal Trade Commission is warning email users NOT to open emails that appear to be from frauddep (at) ftc.gov. These emails contain a virus that is designed to steal passwords and account numbers.

It isn’t hard to spoof, or fake, the return address of an email. This has been done before with the FBI, CIA and other .gov addresses.

As usual, don’t open suspicious emails of any kind. If the government wants to talk to you, they’ll be happy to break down your door in the middle of the night, not send you an email.

Further info is available at this government computer fraud website.

I really get fed up with these antispam blacklist services like Spamcop and all the others.

They have no way of knowing how much good email is rejected with the spam. And the foolish users who pay for their service have no way to “whitelist” good email addresses.

That’s why I believe in companies maintaining their own email server and then using a quality, reasonably priced software like GFI MailEssentials to control spam. Having your own server and software allows you to blacklist whoever you want to block and whitelist your known valid customers, vendors, affiliates, friends, etc.

Spamcop just blacklisted me because someone is spamming from an IP address close to mine; as if I have any control over my “IP neighbors”. I go through this with some service or another every few months.

Oh sure, I can contact Spamcop, which I did, and go through their process for getting off the list. My time isn’t worth anything, right? And after Spamcop there are only about 75 other blacklists to cycle through.

One of my clients is blacklisted by MCHSI (Mediacom) because their new T-1 service is on an IP address that McLeod USA bought out 2 years ago and this outdated blacklist they use has, in 10 days, yet to respond to our request. (It says on their website that average response is just over 2 hours, yeah right!) Why Mediacom uses such an off the wall blacklist is beyond me anyway; other than the fact that everyone hates Mediacom and they want to keep up their reputation.

Get your own domain, your own server, your own antispam software. Quit paying others to tell you that your trusted associates can’t send you email because of the the shotgun approach the blacklist service uses to block spam.

And the lists that are free? Perhaps they’re free for a reason.

P.S. - And when the real spammers are found? Fire up “old sparky” for them.

The email domain I use in my consulting business has well over a hundred email addresses. When I begin a relationship with a new vendor, say Widgets Inc., I provide a contact email address to them of widgets@mydomain.com.

This freaks out some, impresses others. The point is that when I start receiving unsolicited offers from legitimate companies or unsolicited commercial offers (SPAM), and it is addressed to widgets@mydomain.com I know who sold, traded or leaked my email address. I then have the option of deleting that address and that source of spam goes away.

Six months ago I was forced to delete an address created for a German company who sells, of all things, security products. I informed them of the spam I was receiving at the address that only they have and received a “not me” response.

Recently I have had two other foreign companies, one a major South Korean monitor company and another a UK/German maker of - you guessed it - antispam products, have their custom email address at my domain be the target of spam.

Could it be that any company that large has someone employed who isn’t trustworthy or is there an easy way for hackers to monitor the open text flowing through international internet pipes that allows them to harvest email addresses?

Unfortunately at this point I have only questions and not answers. And one suggestion. When spammers are caught, execute them.

Anti Spam software will typically look at the content of the email to try and determine if the message is spam (among other things).

I’ve noticed recently that spammers are resorting to putting their torque me off message in a .pdf file, then use a subject line like:

info-a8a774b4e5180.pdf

Then they send it dressed up to look like it might be coming from someone you have an affiliation with, i.e., a real persons sounding name. They either forge the return address (easy) or send it out through their zombies using their return address - again, real people.

So far I haven’t seen malicious code distributed this way, but it certainly wastes your time to agonize over opening it (people in business do not always recognize a legitimate contact, they have so many), only to find it’s a useless stock promotion.

While it’s never a good idea to open an email, especially an attachment from someone unknown, I do recognize that people in business have different circumstances than a home user.

The Spam problem isn’t going away anytime soon, so make sure your internet security software is up to date. I recommend Trend Micro; when you buy it the license covers 3 PC’s, kind of nice for homes with multiple computers. If you are interested, there is a link in the left column of this page (PC-Cillin Internet Security).