New SPAM
 

Is anyone getting a lot of spam again, this time with the body contaning an image rather than text, so spam filters cannot read the body?

Im getting 5 a day now, with rubbish return addresses, just as soon as I add one email address, there are new ones next time.

QEGY news and share news or something...

Why isnt ntl filters blocking ?

Ive sent lots to @abuse but no help

Re: New SPAM
 

Yep, sure am. The image has some strange lines in it that seem to move before the image appears.

Re: New SPAM
 

I thought we had seen the last of these when NTL told us they now filter SPAM

Re: New SPAM
 

No spam filters are 100% and people are always looking for ways around the filtering. As fast as domains and keywords are filtered out Spammers adjust their tactics and get around the filters.

Re: New SPAM
 

I am getting at least 5 a day. Outlook manages to recognise them as spam. It also blocks the image and there is usually a load of text hidden underneath.

Below is an example of the text outlook found in one I got just now.

Re: New SPAM
 

Yes the text is suppose to make it look like a good email to you

Re: New SPAM
 

What is the point of this kind of spam? They're not selling drugs or shares, or inviting you to view dubious websites. :confused:

Re: New SPAM
 

The email is usually in the form of a jpeg with the text advertising the drugs or whatever, but if outlook thinks its spam and blocks the picture then the text is what you end up seeing.

Re: New SPAM
 

You can always tell Outlook or whatever you use to block all images in emails, but then you have the problem of not being able to see real emails that have images in them :(

Re: New SPAM
 

I must say, the level of spam has increased over the last couple of days. My wife is even getting it sent to an unused account!!! (and no you wouldn't guess the name!) Has ntl been breached???

Re: New SPAM
 

This is why I use Outlook rather than Outlook Express - you can (at least in the version I have at home) set it to not show images and not show HTML but enable them on an email-by-email basis (in Outlook Express the otpion is global)

With this sort of spam, the content is in am image so filters cannot scan it and the random text is there to avoid pattern based filters (since random text has no pattern).

Re: New SPAM
 

Thunderbird goes (imo) one better than that. By default it shows Images (but not HTML IIRC) in emails for anyone in your contact book, but not for anyone else.

---------- Post added at 09:30 ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 ----------

Generally, that text is set to be the same colour as the background, so the user won't see it. I think they do it so that the email client doesn't just see one image and immediately assume it is spam.

It doesn't matter that most email clients will block this out. They only need one or two people to buy the particular product (and inevitably, some people are gullible enough to) and the spammer is in profit.

Re: New SPAM
 

Yep, I'm using Thunderbird too :tu: Didn't have that enabled but will certainly turn that on now.

Re: New SPAM
 

I have had endless spam over the last couple of weeks I have blocked more addys in the last few weeks than I have in all the years I have been with NTL!

Re: New SPAM
 

I'm getting hammered by this spam aswell, I use Outlook Express 2003 and have managed to get most of it blocked into the junk mail folder.

Re: New SPAM
 

I have Outlook from office 2003, and so have set up many rules, but its not possable without blocking good emails, and with a 5 year old email address, I dont want to change it, after all I might just forget to tell someone (Like the bank) :)-

This is something new, as when NTL installed a spam filter I hardly got any, so I guess we have to wait...

I have fowarded them all to NTL, but see they have a form to use online, yet it asks for an IP address, and if its not a NTL Ip range they dont want to know ?

Re: New SPAM
 

Have you thought about using SpamBayes (http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/)? I've been using this add-in to Microsoft Outlook successfully for many years - you "train" it to recognise spam. And its free!

Re: New SPAM
 

It's not always caught by Spambayes either.
And it's not restricted to NTL - I also get the same email type at work (where there is supposed to be a sophisticated and expensive spam filter), and also on the Gmail inbox.

Re: New SPAM
 

Well, no algorithm is going to be perfect!

Perhaps the point is - why spend lots of money on a spam filter, when you can get similar results for free?

Re: New SPAM
 

I have Norton anyway, and it cant stop them, the old filters cannot be tuned to these new emails

Re: New SPAM
 

I wouldn't say these are new.. the first time I saw one (i.e. a spam with the text attached as an image and random words appended to the bottom) was sent to my work email in July 2005 (bear in mind that my work email is never used outside work), although the image in those was more of a flyer. The ones I've received in my other work email address (which I don't use at all except for company mailing lists) are just text on a plain coloured background and they started in April this year.

Re: New SPAM
 

I set up one e-mail address to use when I need to leave an address on a website (registration etc).
Regardless of what it's for, I only use that address.
Needless to say it attracts HUGE amounts of spam because it's lying around the internet and, as secure as I make my system, webmasters don't necessarilly do the same for their websites.

The advantage of doing this is that my 3rd party spam filter (who'd really rely on ntl for anything, much less their spam filter?) finds it much easier to detect non-spam than spam. So I can set the whole address up as spam and filter out the non-spam. Sort of reverse engineering and a bit long-winded I know, but I find it's very effective.
Sometimes the odd msg gets through but much less than the other way round (the way spammers design their messages to target you).

Re: New SPAM
 

Yes i've been getting the same sort of spam in my ntl email, it's driving me crazy.

Re: New SPAM
 

well its gone very quite and none of this for a few days :)

Beats me how they get all my email addresses, one of them is never used on the internet for anything, with a @yahoo for the internet, they still send to it..

still open relay mailers will be blocked soon, and each mailer will have to send an id, so this may help

Re: New SPAM
 

I think I have blocked that many domains this ****e was coming from I just don't get it anymore.

Re: New SPAM
 

Huh, thats a good way, just block EVERYTHING :)

Re: New SPAM
 

I've also been getting a plethora of spam over the last few weeks, Outlook seems to get the bulk of them but some slip through, I keep getting messages saying work from home and earn £2k a week.

Re: New SPAM
 

Oh good I'm not the only one experiencing this as well. I had 26 the other day!!

Re: New SPAM
 

An email addy of my wifes, that has never been used has all of a sudden been inundated with spam??? go figure?
And no you wouldn't guess it!!

Re: New SPAM
 

Loooooooooads of ways.
Yahoo and M$N sell the address lists they provide on to mailers (I set my father up with a hotmail address and clicked the inbox to show him how to use it and found spam waiting for him. All in uder two mintues).

You can be 'harvested' by registering on a web site with insuffucient security.

You can have insufficient security on your own p.c., firewall etc.

Someone can forward an e-mail from you without removing your address and eventually you can find yourself on an address list.

Providing your e-mail address to a free service, ie. these virtual greeting card sites (nothing's really for free, in this case you pay with your e-mail address).

Re: New SPAM
 

We can't all rely on NTL to play nursemaid to our emails, or what we do on the net. We have to take on some of that responsibility ourselves and it's up to us to make sure we do as much as we can to minimise spam.
I get at least 15 items of spam on my yahoo account...... nothing (yeah, this is odd!) in my hotmail account (it's rare if it does get through!)

I have one email for signing up to things - any resulting spam goes to one inbox.. one email for family/friends (and nothing else) and an email address thats strictly business stuff!
So far, no probs with that ;)

Re: New SPAM
 

Oooooooooooooo your so lucky I envy you...

Think I get at least 100 per hour last time I checked/

I wish I only recieved 5 spam a day :rolleyes:

I have spamfilters set real high and still some creep into my main inbox annoying. Pretty soon I'm going to start hard bouncing with a reference to web interface to confirm if the user wants to deliver the sent mail.