Email address problem?

Not exactly broadband but...

Today I recieved a spam message from some entity with exactly the same
email adress as myself. Should I be worried? What to do?

ColinM

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, SteveT
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
>Not exactly broadband but...
>
>Today I recieved a spam message from some entity with exactly the same
>email adress as myself. Should I be worried? What to do?
>

Just delete it. It is common for spam to appear to have your own email
address as the sender.

--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

SteveT wrote:
> Not exactly broadband but...
>
> Today I recieved a spam message from some entity with exactly the same
> email adress as myself. Should I be worried? What to do?

No.

Nothing. Except maybe reconsider your spam filtering.

>
> ColinM


--
Mike Scott (unet <at> scottsonline.org.uk)
Harlow Essex England

>> Today I recieved a spam message from some entity with exactly the same
>> email adress as myself. Should I be worried? What to do?
>
>No.
>
>Nothing. Except maybe reconsider your spam filtering.
>
Thanks for that. Just one thing funny about it though. My ISP (BT)
does the spam filtering, so a message from "(E-Mail Removed)"
slipped through to me despite the fact I am "Joe.Bloggs".

ColinM

SteveT wrote:
>>> Today I recieved a spam message from some entity with exactly the
>>> same email adress as myself. Should I be worried? What to do?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> Nothing. Except maybe reconsider your spam filtering.
>>
> Thanks for that. Just one thing funny about it though. My ISP (BT)
> does the spam filtering, so a message from "(E-Mail Removed)"
> slipped through to me despite the fact I am "Joe.Bloggs".


Its not as simple as that I'm afraid.

I have a btinternet.com address. But, I send my email through a different
gateway (choice of three, my ISP Demon and two mail domains I own).
Therefore, its not unknown for me to send email to a mailing list,
originating at Demon, going via Yahoo or Google, and coming back to my
btinterent.com email address. The message will have "from" and "reply to"
fields containing my btinternet address as the sender.

Or I might use a web portal to compose a message.

The above is completely legitimate use. So a simple block on "you didn't
send it via your own ISP" doesn't work.




Reality is that there are probably lots of spam items with your email
address as sender. Some will break through the spam filter. Many will not.
Its been going on for at least a decade.


- Nigel (ex BT and btinternet design/development )



--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

> Today I recieved a spam message from some entity with exactly the same
> email adress as myself. Should I be worried? What to do?

Don't worry about it - i've put (what may be in parts factually
incorrect) :-} information on phishing / email abuse on my site (i'm
open to offers if anyone fancies correcting anything !)

http://www.coreutilities.co.uk/phishing.html

One minor note - if you use Kaspersky, it might flag the page as
malicious, because I show a html link saying one thing and doing
another by way of example (to a fake site).

Nigel Cliffe wrote:
> SteveT wrote:
>>>> Today I recieved a spam message from some entity with exactly the
>>>> same email adress as myself. Should I be worried? What to do?
>>> No.
>>>
>>> Nothing. Except maybe reconsider your spam filtering.
....
>
> The above is completely legitimate use. So a simple block on "you didn't
> send it via your own ISP" doesn't work.

Unless you're sure you never email yourself, in which case it's a
reasonable enough criterion.

Using the sender's own email addy is one easy way of for a spammer to
make reasonably sure the sender domain exists; some systems check that.

I think the OP said BT, his ISP, does his spam filtering. I sincerely
hope that's configurable (and can be turned off). I'd /never/ want an
ISP to block my mail - flag as suspect before delivery, possibly
helpful; ditch or block, never.

--
Mike Scott (unet <at> scottsonline.org.uk)
Harlow Essex England

Mike Scott wrote:
> Nigel Cliffe wrote:
>> SteveT wrote:
>>>>> Today I recieved a spam message from some entity with exactly the
>>>>> same email adress as myself. Should I be worried? What to do?
>>>> No.
>>>>
>>>> Nothing. Except maybe reconsider your spam filtering.
> ...
>>
>> The above is completely legitimate use. So a simple block on "you
>> didn't send it via your own ISP" doesn't work.
>
> Unless you're sure you never email yourself, in which case it's a
> reasonable enough criterion.
>
> Using the sender's own email addy is one easy way of for a spammer to
> make reasonably sure the sender domain exists; some systems check
> that.

Both above are reasonable points.



> I think the OP said BT, his ISP, does his spam filtering. I sincerely
> hope that's configurable (and can be turned off). I'd /never/ want an
> ISP to block my mail - flag as suspect before delivery, possibly
> helpful; ditch or block, never.

BTinternet's spam filtering can be set to any of these by the customer:

a) turned off completely
b) set to mark items as "spam" in an extra header line, leaving customer to
deal with as they see fit in their POP3 download (for example their own
filters).
c) move spam items to a webmail based "spam/junk" folder, where it will sit
for 1, 2, or 4 weeks (at customer's choice) before auto deletion.


For ages I used (b), though now use (c) which I check for false-marking.
The filter seems good at not junking genuine items, the number of false
cases is very low.



- Nigel (ex BT R&D).



--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

Nigel Cliffe wrote:
....
>> I think the OP said BT, his ISP, does his spam filtering. I sincerely
>> hope that's configurable (and can be turned off). I'd /never/ want an
>> ISP to block my mail - flag as suspect before delivery, possibly
>> helpful; ditch or block, never.
>
> BTinternet's spam filtering can be set to any of these by the customer:
>
> a) turned off completely
> b) set to mark items as "spam" in an extra header line, leaving customer to
> deal with as they see fit in their POP3 download (for example their own
> filters).
> c) move spam items to a webmail based "spam/junk" folder, where it will sit
> for 1, 2, or 4 weeks (at customer's choice) before auto deletion.

Sounds good.

--
Mike Scott (unet <at> scottsonline.org.uk)
Harlow Essex England

"Mike Scott" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Pqc9j.16763$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Nigel Cliffe wrote:
> ...
>>> I think the OP said BT, his ISP, does his spam filtering. I sincerely
>>> hope that's configurable (and can be turned off). I'd /never/ want an
>>> ISP to block my mail - flag as suspect before delivery, possibly
>>> helpful; ditch or block, never.
>>
>> BTinternet's spam filtering can be set to any of these by the customer:
>>
>> a) turned off completely
>> b) set to mark items as "spam" in an extra header line, leaving customer
>> to deal with as they see fit in their POP3 download (for example their
>> own filters).
>> c) move spam items to a webmail based "spam/junk" folder, where it will
>> sit for 1, 2, or 4 weeks (at customer's choice) before auto deletion.
>
> Sounds good.

BT use Yahoo for their mail service and similar facilities are provided by
Yahoo themselves.

George