E-mail Delivery Errors

I'm suddenly getting hundreds of e-mail messages telling
me my mail could not be delivered. In all cases, I did
not send the messages in the first place, but someone
makes it look like I originated them.

The headings read --"Mail Delivery System Failure"
or "Delivery Status Notification." This is followed by a
message saying "the e-mial you sent could not be
delivered."

I did not send these messages. How do I get this
condition corrected?
Thank you, Don

I get these things too, but just a few. I've noticed that they usually
appear before during and after virus attacks..sometimes with attachments. I
started getting them a few years ago after I was attacked for the first time
by a virus. Maybe my email was revealed in the process. It was caught by
Norton Anti-virus but I got the "Mail Delivery System Failure" emails for
weeks afterwards. I've never open the attachments but maybe someone with
experience can tell us why and how we keep getting these.

"Don Davis" wrote in message
...
I'm suddenly getting hundreds of e-mail messages telling
me my mail could not be delivered. In all cases, I did
not send the messages in the first place, but someone
makes it look like I originated them.

The headings read --"Mail Delivery System Failure"
or "Delivery Status Notification." This is followed by a
message saying "the e-mial you sent could not be
delivered."

I did not send these messages. How do I get this
condition corrected?
Thank you, Don

You've been spoofed. Your email address has been used by a commercial spammer in the
Sender field, who probably has an outdated mailing list CD of half a million email
addresses. Email addresses are as transitory as phone numbers. Say only 40,000 of those
addresses on the list are no longer valid email addresses, then over time, you will have
40,000 messages bounced back to you as undeliverable, even though you personally haven't
sent the original messages. But, there's mo What about the couple of hundred thousand
messages that got through to valid email addresses on the list, and are now on the systems
of strangers,some of whom catch viruses/worms which distribute your email address to
others, and then the bounce backs really start to snowball. It's a no win situation.
After I started getting a couple of hundred bounced messages a day, the only recourse was
to change my email address.

In order to prevent this situation from happening again, make sure you're using a decent
firewall. Zone Alarm standard the FREE version will do. Get a FREE hotmail account, and
use the Hotmail email address when registering anything online, or posting to the news
groups (spammers also harvest addresses from news groups like this one, so add extra
characters to your email address for your news group posts, see my address for an example)
or when a web page requests an email address. So, if that address gets spoofed, you can
easily get a new Hotmail address. The Hotmail will bounce backs won't be in the Inbox of
your primary ISP email account. Hotmail also has a decent spam filter. Also, be careful
whom you give your email address to once you get it changed. If you know that certain
people you do email with aren't tech savvy, and don't use firewalls, and open attachments
when they shouldn't, give them your Hotmail account email address.
--

T.C.

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"Don Davis" wrote in message
...
I'm suddenly getting hundreds of e-mail messages telling
me my mail could not be delivered. In all cases, I did
not send the messages in the first place, but someone
makes it look like I originated them.

The headings read --"Mail Delivery System Failure"
or "Delivery Status Notification." This is followed by a
message saying "the e-mial you sent could not be
delivered."

I did not send these messages. How do I get this
condition corrected?
Thank you, Don


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.759 / Virus Database: 508 - Release Date: 9/9/2004