Brenda Stardom [ Returned Email And Paragraph Salad ]

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17-4-2006 - Returned Email And Paragraph Salad

Update: I've had 35 more since yesterday.
Update II: 9-5-06
This problem hasn't stopped and has switched to regular people's email addresses, including Yahoo Groups. My domain name is being used for spam and I'm not happy.

I am pissed. Pure and simple. I've received over 60 variations of 'return to sender' emails just the past two days. It seems my domain has been used by others to send spam and if these are the ones coming back, I can only wonder how many got through. They differ, too -- different senders and subjects and some come with attachments.

I've searched for others with this problem, but can't find a thing that matches what's happening to me. They come from 'Mail Delivery System', 'MAILER-DAEMON', 'Postmaster', 'System Administrators', 'The Post Office' and even one from 'Symantec_AntiVirus_for_SMTP_Gateway'.

The subjects vary from 'Delivery Notification: 'Delivery has been delayed', 'Returned mail: see transcript for details', 'Mail delivery failed, returning message to sender, 'Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender', 'failure notice', 'Undeliverable: cart Africa" to 'Undeliverable: self-assured pad'. The last two baffle me. But nothing's as strange as the "paragraph salad" they contain, which according to Wikipedia is used to get around spam filters. Example:

challenger... vulture an hedge lucid, murder negligently, in information superhighway and indefinitely, consideration riverside pockmark requirement
fuel of that refresher course

That's just a small portion of this crap. My eyes burn from reading about spoofed domains, which is what's happening in my case. I've read about headers, tracking the spammers to their source which is no easy task. My fear is my domain will be blacklisted for sending spam. Dammit it all. I'm not savvy enough to write knowingly enough about this mofo crap. I've also read desperate posts from people saying their domain has been spoofed and asking how to stop it. Judging from all the replies, it's impossible.

I've received 3 more since beginning this report and am ready to scream. I'm sick of opening these to look for clues, copying IP's, looking them up, and reading more "salad". I'm ready to puke. The latest:

communicate with tersely interrupt network, relativity, deteriorate deity to hospitality, a the unheard-of misspent ancestor, mounting redid magnetism, of broken-down, nervous that lovingly this? artifact maternal browser antagonistically is officer newsprint sensor, obligingly to in silky a booby-trap moisturizer the by loads, windowsill spiritual drawn esthetic of captivity, their to child support connotation, of stoop is and probability gibberish target.!

Gibberish, oh yes, this is so frigging crazy it's making me the same. I was told I was silly to write this, that most people wouldn't open emails like this and I disagreed. If an email comes from a domain someone knows and even visits, the xlyz@xxxxxx.com wouldn't be noticed and it would be opened. Who knows what would happen?? Since many come with attachments I can only deduce they contain a virus or something in that vein. I hate these creeps, they've ruined my day and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

End users should take no action upon receiving email with word salad content, or whose sender or purpose is unclear. Opening questionable email, and especially clicking on links contained in it, may risk overall information security.
--Wikipedia

Brenda Stardom
Portugal - 7h40 GMT