Hi Jostein,
I agree that the problem is most likely a virus [on another machine] that has inserted a false email address in its senders field to hide its tracks. This same tactic is often used by spamers also to grab attention (I have many times been attracted to a spam email because it was supposedly sent by myself or someone I knew), which is why I mentioned it as we do not know if the email in question was in fact a virus or not - just that it had been supposedly flagged as a virus on another machine (which in itself may be a virus).
I was first alerted to this sort of things a few years back, when having spent a few months in South America, up in the Andes far away from a power point let alone a phone line, I was informed on my return to civilisation that I had been sending out virus laden emails from several people I did not know, when in fact my computer had been switched off and unplugged for the best part of 8 weeks!
Antonio
On 20 May 2004, at 11:43, Jostein wrote:
Quoting Antonio Aparicio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
I think what happens is your email address gets picked up somewhere on
the net and inserted into a spam/virus email as if it were sent by you
which it is not. You then get a virus alert warning in return from the
recipients system.
I don't think it's right to regard spam and viruses (worms) together here. When
the culprit is a virus, it's probably caused by spoofing in a private person's
computer.
If the origin of the mail is a spam server, it has methods of ensuring this sort
of thing doesn't occur. And besides; spam registers contain so many addresses
that the chance of putting the same address in both FROM: and TO: fields is
closer to zero than the shape of a donut.
One interesting thing, though, is that some of the virii from last summer was
constructed to report email addresses from the infected computer to known email
collectors. It is suspected that the virus makers earned some money for the
spammer companies that way. Of course nothing can be proven, but spammers know
that the value of their service is directly dependent on the number of
addresses they can distribute to...
Alternatively, you machine may be infected and be sending out viruses withuot you or your anti-virus software being aware.
Possible, but most unlikely since Malcolm told us his AV is up to date.
I would imagine it is probably the first scenario, and there is nothing
you can do about it. Except perhaps steer clear of porno sites if you
visit them as they are some of the prime culprits.
Well that's one piece of information more than I actually needed...
Jostein
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