why has this come to me?

[Brin]

Please excuse my total ignorance here. I am suddenly getting a huge amount of spam every day on my NTL account. Yahoo and O2 are fine but NTL is driving me potty.

The spam is not addresssed to me eg

From: Michael Jacob <rvyqucnq@unusedfish.com>
To: [removed]@ntlworld.com

How come this is coming into my account which bears no resemblance to this address?

Can anyone explain?

Brin

Edit: Not a good idea to post actual e-mail address in a forum (pem).

[danielf]

You're in the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) field. You are on the list of recipients, but it doesn't show up, as your mail client only show the recipients in the 'to' or 'cc' fields.

[MovedGoalPosts]

There is every possibility that your email addy is buried in the BCC list (blind copy). Spammers know every trick under the book to get useless stuff into your inbox.

* beaten to it

[Brin]

Thanks for the replies. I should have read through the Emails etc forum as other have written on this topic already


Sorry!

[td444]

I dont think NTLWorld's Email servers are open to abuse - maybe to easy to generate usernames, but ive not recieved any spam on my NTLWorld Emails.

Then again, I dont use them for good reasons too

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

There is every possibility that your email addy is buried in the BCC list (blind copy). Spammers know every trick under the book to get useless stuff into your inbox.

* beaten to it

- I don't like the idea of a 'blind' copy, anyway - remove that option ..............?

[Halcyon]

And so is there a way to stop this ?
I am getting tonnes of mail at the moment.....all junk.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by homealone

- I don't like the idea of a 'blind' copy, anyway - remove that option ..............?

I agree, if it's something that should be sent to somebody, then be open about it. If it's confidential then it's exactly that, in which case it would be nice to be able to trust that it hasn't been sent halfway round the world.

Many servers seem to be able to block the use of BCC copies. As an antispam measure that is effective. A simple option that could be applied by ntl with little impact on their customers perhaps?

Originally Posted by td444

I dont think NTLWorld's Email servers are open to abuse - maybe to easy to generate usernames, but ive not recieved any spam on my NTLWorld Emails

That probably depends on your choice of guessable, or not, ntl email addy. The initial.surname@, or firstname.surname@ types are too easy for these spammers to use, and I dare say they have software that guesses the addys, sends the spam, and unless there is an undeliverable bounce, locks the addy into it's future use list.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

And so is there a way to stop this ?
I am getting tonnes of mail at the moment.....all junk.

What worked for me is to change all my ntl addys to something unguessable, and using names including nicknames that I dont post to forums or on websites either. This did mean changing the username of my main account. Try using names with lots of numbers ie name###name or whatever.

Since I changed my ntl addys around 12 months ago I havent had a single spam on them, after the first fortnight when ntl forwarded the old stuff to the new names, somehow.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

I agree, if it's something that should be sent to somebody, then be open about it. If it's confidential then it's exactly that, in which case it would be nice to be able to trust that it hasn't been sent halfway round the world.

Yes, but even without BCC, what's to keep the sender to send this confidential information to others in a separate email?

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by danielf

Yes, but even without BCC, what's to keep the sender to send this confidential information to others in a separate email?

Nothing really, the point though is I suppose etiquette, if there is such a thing with email, or indeed any other form of communication.

Originally Posted by danielf

Yes, but even without BCC, what's to keep the sender to send this confidential information to others in a separate email?

that is true for intranet apps, as well, notes, for example

[Stuart]

Bcc can be handy in specific circumstances. For instance, the University I work in operates various mailing lists where it is important that the recipients don't know who the other recipients are. We have two options. Either maintain a list server, or simply send the email to a false address, and BCC all the intended recipients. Much simpler on our end.

It's actually a shame that Spammers abuse this. It's actually a shame Spam exists at all..

[zendawn]

Originally Posted by scastle

It's actually a shame that Spammers abuse this. It's actually a shame Spam exists at all..

Too right, just goes to show how parasitic some humans can be. I hate spam, not just for the hassle it causes but because it shows just how pathetic some of the human race can be.

[Matth]

It is possible to filter for "Your address not in TO: ot CC:" - but before that, you need to weed out any BCC: mail that you DO expect - some people do run a "poor man's mailing list" in that way.
If you have multiple accounts, you also need to select the correct account, or list all your valid email addresses (and remember to update if you add accounts, or you'll get nothing).

Where possible - I use "Delete from server" - this works only if the rule can be assessed from the header only (this can be!).

Remember, Outlook Express (this is my example) processes the rules in order, so by starting with a set of "pass" rules that include the action "Stop processing more rules" (as the only action, or in addition to moving to a folder), then your "junk it" rules, you can have considerable selection.