Mind Streaming

Sunday, September 07, 2003

I would like to announce globally that I am completely satisfied with the dimensions of this body of mine and all its working parts . May I say , with a degree of modesty , that, having found real love, I feel blessed with the drive of an eighteen year old in the body of a man who is actually 53. Sadly, this information has not filtered through to someone calling herself Elizabeth Joyce.

"Elizabeth" is a very altruistic, charitable and thoughtful person who spends her days on a computer owned by Comcast Cable Communications Holdings, Inc. , surprising people like me with the generous but , believe me, unnecessary offer of Amazing Penis Enlargement Pills! This product she also promises will :-
* Gain Up To 3 Full Inches In Length Over Time
* Expand Your Penis Up To 20hicker
* Stop Premature Ejaculation!
Produce Stronger, Rock Hard Erections
* 100afe To Take, With NO Side Effects
* Fast Priority Shipping WorldWide
* Doctor Approved And Recommended
* No Pumps! No Surgery! No Exercises!
* 100oney Back Guarantee

It is the insolently indiscrimate nature of this , the lowest form of advertising technique, that annoys me so much and the lengths to which spammers go to conceal their own identity and tracks.

Invariably, spammers have fake account I.D.s and "reply to" addresses and so the option of writing back and tellung them where to stick their silly products isn't usually open. But , thanks to a lovely lady called Sophia at the Hotmail Abuse Team, I have learned a lot more about the Elizabeth Joyce?s of this world and, more important, how to trace and therefore report them.

"Elizabeth" is illegally using a fake Hotmail Account and I have traced her IP address back to Comcast Cable Communications Holdings, Inc. I will be sending them full details of the e mail I received. It is impossible to tell at present whether "Elizabeth" is one of their employees and whether she is directed by them to use the widespread scam of faking details within e mail header messages to try to conceal the originator of the offensive junk mail.

It is usually very easy to spot spam in your e mail "In box" , from the distinctive, often odd looking header information displayed with it and you will very probably delete them immediately. But, if you right click on that header, you should then see the full version of the header message. It will no doubt contain fake ammendments to try to conceal the route which the e mail has taken from the originator, but, more important, the actual IP address ( unique identification number)of the machine from which the e mail was sent will be there amongst the misinformation.

Typically spammers often use fake Yahoo and Hotmail accounts and both of these legitimate organisations have dedicated agents, like Sophia , who deal with such abuse and need us to report them so they can take appropriate action against what is legally fraud. To help them you need to send them a copy of the full header information accessed by a right click on the shorter header that appears on the e mail.

If you get such spam from a fake Yahoo account, then click on this link.
Hot Mail Abuse Form
Yahoo provide here an on line form and ask you to cut and paste into the relevant boxes, the subject line, the full header message ( which betrays the whereabouts of the fraudster ) and the body of the e mail. I used this form to report another penis enlargement comedian operating in Brazil, and the web page form here enables your report to be directed immediately to the relevant team, in this case Yahoo.Com/ Brazil.

If the orignator is using a fake Hotmail account, e mail Hotmail's abuse team at abuse@css.one.microsoft.com

The Hotmail team have been real stars in helping me to deal with ?Elizabeth Joyce and all her kind. As I write a lovely guy called Carlos at MSN Hotmail Customer Support just e mailed me with additional advice. He tells me ? Please Do NOT respond to spam (or junk) e-mail by replying or even following an "unsubscribe" link in unsolicited e-mail. Responding to unsolicited mail only confirms that you have a live address and could lead to further solicitation and scams that can clog your e-mail Inbox.? He also provides this link to enable you to put a name to IP numbers at
Geektools or Swhois

Furthermore, his colleague, Sophia, provided extensive valuable information and links to help me understand how these sinister spam-people operate and to understand more about how e mail actually works. She writes "To learn more about reading message headers, we recommend this site:
Stop spam"
Here is a cut and paste of her whole e mail which you may find helpful:-

"This is Sophia and I am writing in response to your complaint regarding your receipt of unsolicited e-mail. The account you reported l98vumvzt@hotmail.com is not a valid Hotmail account. The message was sent using a forged header. However, after investigating the header of the message you received, I have determined that this message came from a user of Comcast Cable Communications Holdings, Inc. The IP address of the machine that sent the message is 24.118.180.245. I suggest you contact the abuse department at abuse@comcast.net to pursue action against this user.
Remember to forward the message with full message headers exposed. We suggest a subject line like "SPAM: Forged Headers - IP traced to your domain" so that the abuse team of Comcast Cable Communications Holdings, Inc will be able to quickly take action according to their Terms of Use.
From time to time, individuals may forge message headers in order to suggest that the message originated with MSN Hotmail. In addition, these "spammers" may use similar fake "reply-to" accounts, "remove me" accounts, and other types of drop boxes either in the headers or in the body of messages, on Web pages, in Web forms or in postings such as newsgroups. This is an extremely difficult practice to guard against, but one we will continue our efforts to prevent.>>>>Tips for identifying forged headers
- To help you identify a forged header, note that Hotmail e-mail addresses which begin with numbers or which have additional information in the domain name (@hotmail.com) are not valid.
- If the message has been sent from a valid Hotmail account, the expanded header will include a line that begins:
X-originating-IP:
- If you see a posting on a newsgroup with a Hotmail address, it is most likely based on a forged account. Hotmail members cannot post directly to newsgroups but must go through an independent news-posting service or use another e-mail program.

To learn more about reading message headers, we recommend this site:
http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers/headers.html.
This site provides clear instructions on how to track down the real sender of a message.
Furthermore, I would like to suggest that you use the filter feature offered by your provider to direct unsolicited mail to trash.

Thank you very much for your continued support and patience.
Sincerely,
Sophia B.
MSN Hotmail Customer Support."

So there it all is. I guess, as I said before, we probably automaticlly delete all the spam that comes in , but equally, I think it is worth going to the trouble of reporting spammers that can be identified in this way.








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