[CLUE-Talk] help with spammer information

[Matt Gushee]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:52:28PM -0700, Mike Staver wrote:
> Somebody is now using my email address staver at fimble.com to send spam, 
> and for one week now I've been getting nothing but bounce back messages 
> to addresses that no longer exist.  I'm getting EXTREMELY irritated that 
> there is nothing I can do to stop these messages from going out with my 
> email address as the from field.  My domain name fimble.com is getting a 
> bad rap over this,

Well, maybe. If you mean that your domain could end up on somebody's
half-assed blacklist of spammers, or get filtered out by half-assed
filtering software, that's probably possible and a legitimate cause for
concern.

If you're concerned about what human recipients will think of you,
consider that most people with decent spam filters will never see the
fake messages in the first place; and of those who do see them, those
who are net-savvy should certainly know by now not to automatically
assume that the address in the From: header is the real sender. I'm sure
your friends and family will also give you the benefit of the doubt.

Where it could really hurt is if you are trying to conduct business
through your Web site with non-technical members of the public. If
you're not doing that, then I don't think this does you any material
harm.

Which is not to discount the annoyance; it is *extremely* annoying, as I
know through first-hand experience (along with, I think, several other
people on this list). But there may in fact be nothing you can do about
it.

The first thing I would do is to look over the headers and find the
first IP address in the chain. Now, that may not be the real origin of
the message, but it could be. If it is, and it comes from a US domain
(again, not likely, but possible), then you can probably find out who
owns the domain and take legal action--maybe somebody else can advise
you as to what steps to follow.

If it comes from a foreign country, according to all I've ever heard,
there is really no legal action you can take. The only thing I can
think of is publicizing the spammer's name on the Web and asking others
to take action against them.

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Haven Rock Press            Horses bear manure through
Englewood, Colorado, USA        its fields;   
books at havenrock.com         When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)