Plea for help from computer types

[dooky]

Wondering if anyone can advise me on a bizarre email/spam issue I've discovered...
I came back to work today to find one of my hotmail accounts full of 'mail delivery failure' messages- each one containing a 100k attachment that I had allegedly sent. Of course, I hadn't sent any of these messages, and in the headers it looks like they originated from somewhere else, and were using my account as a cover. For instance, they all contain something like:

Return-path: <spookydooky@hotmail.com>
Received: from [65.26.226.38] (helo=COMPUTER)
     by server1.24hostingnow.com with esmtp (Exim 4.20)
     id 19rQER-0007N3-Mi
     for broken@godesktop.com; Mon, 25 Aug 2003 18:54:41 -0400

or something. The exact details vary, but the 'received from' message is always the same. I've tried contacting hotmail about this, but it's nigh on impossible to find an actual 'help' email address. I don't have a clue what's going on, so can anyone help me?

dooky

[Spanner]

There are many, MANY e-mail viruses that scan a person's address book and then spew out e-mail both addressed from AND to the various addresses in the book. All this really indicates is that some poor schmuck out there who had your address in his or her address book got infected by the virus, and the virus happened to spew a few messages with your address in the Return-path field to someplace where they bounced. Since your address was in the field, they just happened to get bounced to you.

Of course, it's certainly possible that you're the poor schmuck in question, so you might want to consider sweeping your computer for viruses. (It never hurts to do so every once and a while anyway.) Chances are, though, that this is something completely independent of you, and that there is nothing at all you can do about it. The messages will stop eventually. Just delete them as they come.

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Well, if Hotmail isn't configured as a POP3 mail account, and last I checked it was web-based only, then it won't be dooky.  But your other part is definitely accurate for a cause.

[MrWhat]

I've recently had exactly the same problem-- bounced messages with 100k attachments, with my e-mail address.  As has been said, there probably isn't much you can do about it.

I think open/unauthenticated e-mail may not be around much longer.

Some related pages:

Someone is using my email address!
http://www.webcs.com/webcsdocs/spam.html

How do spammers get my email address?
http://www.newcreations.net/webmaster/spam.html

[Spanner]

*Chuckles*

Welp, looks like I'm the next victim. Somebody who had me on their mailing list must have been infected, because I was recently bombarded by nearly a score of virus-packed e-mails, and more are arriving even as I type. I'm not sure if they have 100K attachments, because they're all being caught and deleted by my spam filters, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Only one of them so far claims to be FROM me, however.

[Saucer]

Email address spoofing! It's the work of spam bots. I get them from time to time. Just as dictionary attacks sometimes hit your address, they use it as a return address as well. The bounced back messages are all spam for viagra and such. My user name is "saucer" so of course I fal pray to dictionary attacks. I had spam in my inbox with with the first 24 hours of getting my Earthlink account!

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Amazingly, my Earthlink account was actually a virgin to all spam for the first many months I used it... it was only after I had just gotten started with this site I got this weird email offering an FFA service; free-for-all listing.  Apparently the idea was I'd get my site listed in with a whole bunch of others or something.  Even though the only thing truly worth getting listed in is google and perhaps some semi-popular anime sites' link lists, I went for it anyway.  How naive I was.    I've been getting all these great (and absolute falsehood) methods on how to become rich in 10 minutes or something.  "Free-For-All"... argh.

[larewen_evenstar]

I only get spammed by Porn. That and: Do you need a pension? Or: Is your mortgage too high?

Oh the irony.

Hopefully I wont be caught by, what I am calling: THE KILLER MAIL!!! *evil manic laughter* My Email is choked up enough as it is.

[El The Istari]

I've been spammed!

I received an e-mail that stated a message I'd sent hadn't worked, which had an attachtment...

But I don't remeber sending it!  

[theravenisdead]

I used to get over 50 spams a day, then my isp cleaned up its filters, and it went down to about 3 or less a day. Now thats service