I think I know the answer to this, but I'm curious if there is some way 
to prevent it.

I got a "Returned mail: User unknown" message in my "postmaster" account:

>   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
>... while talking to air-yb01.mail.aol.com.:
> >>>RCPT To:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
><<< 550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND
>550 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>... User unknown
>
>Reporting-MTA: dns; rly-st14.mail.aol.com
>Arrival-Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 16:32:18 -0400 (EDT)
>
>Final-Recipient: RFC822; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Action: failed
>Status: 2.0.0
>Remote-MTA: DNS; air-yb01.mail.aol.com
>Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 250 OK
>Last-Attempt-Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 16:33:22 -0400 (EDT)
>
>From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject:  Detecytive Sofqtware
>Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 15:30:29 -0700

Now, I didn't send a message to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". The only way I might 
have is if "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" had sent a message to my "abuse" account and 
their IP was blacklisted; I have an autoresponse set up for any message 
that comes in to my "abuse" account and they are sent via the 
"postmaster" account. Now, perhaps I should change the autoresponder. But 
this particular message has no record; my autoresponder did not reply to 
any message from "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" (or anyone else recently. I haven't had 
a hit to that account in months).

So, what I think is going on is someone is forging my address, 
"[EMAIL PROTECTED]", into the Return-path: or Reply-to: fields 
of their e-mail. Then, when the recipient "bounces", it comes back to me. 
Is that assumption reasonable?

Finally, is there some way to prevent this? I'm concerned that 
"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" is going to get blamed for a bunch of spam 
that we are not responsible for.

Any thoughts?




================================================
|     Doug Starkey                             |
|     Network Administrator                    |
|     Pecan Deluxe Candy Company               |
|     2570 Lone Star Drive                     |
|     Dallas, TX 75212-6308                    |
|     e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]          |
|     voice: 214-631-3669 Ext. 108             |
|     fax: 214-631-5833                        |
================================================


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