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Are you getting porn in your email?

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  • #16
    Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

    Originally posted by Buzzy View Post
    So how do these misspelling freaks get access to email addresses? I mean this junk just started pouring in all of a sudden, never had it before.
    Someone with whom you have communicated by e-mail could have spyware unknowingly installed on their computer, which they could have picked up from any of a number of websites (not necessarily porn sites, either - song lyric sites are a popular target these days, for example.) That spyware can harvest e-mail addresses from that person's address book or e-mail program, and voila! - spammers have your address.

    If you've ever used that e-mail address when ordering something online, like a purchase or signing up for newsletters - you can expect it to slip out of the grasp of those retailers and services.

    Many people have firewalls and quarantine systems (like the spam filter you said you use) installed on their home computers, and there's no excuse for any business to not have some level of protection on their work systems. But spamming technology will ALWAYS be ahead of the filtering curve - it's an accepted fact of life in the computer age. I have multiple e-mail accounts, each for a different purpose, and almost all of them get some level of spam, despite excellent filtering.

    For those who've never been hit with any spam, consider yourselves fortunate; once your address gets out there, there is no method by which you can guarantee freedom from spam (for that address) ever again.

    As noted before - use the delete key regularly. Also, avoid even opening those obvious spam messages, and NEVER respond to an "unsubscribe me" link in spam - that tells the spammers that they have hit an active address, and your address will be sold and circulated even more widely.

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    • #17
      Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

      Just to make clear, your registration information here, including your e-mail address, is not redistributed, disclosed (without your authorization via your profile preferences), sold, or otherwise used for spam or other purposes.

      There are people, or rather bots, that register for message boards specifically to harvest profile e-mail addresses, or to send spam via Private Message within the system, or (of course) to post spam to public areas. We try to catch and eliminate these false accounts as soon as possible.

      While there's lots of good advice out there in keeping your e-mail address out of spam databases, there's lots of ways it can end up in one anyway (oftentimes accidentally via a friend). Heck, spam is so cheap to send, many simply blast every combination of 4-12 letters as usernames at ISPs and hope a fraction of them exist as real accounts. If your address doesn't generate a bounce, it's a keeper.

      I should also note that spammers can spoof source addresses easily, too. A couple of years back, someone, somewhere, decided to use HawaiiThreads.com. So e-mails were going out to thousands of people -- most not even HawaiiThreads.com members -- with our domain on it. It pretended to be from Admin or Webmaster or Account or other generic names and insisted the recipient log in and confirm information (i.e. classic phishing attack). So there are other ways people can randomly get tarred with the spam brush.

      Spam in general is a hassle, and its content can certainly be horrific. But you're not alone, and most certainly, HawaiiThreads.com is not the source.

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      • #18
        Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

        Originally posted by Buzzy View Post
        You're right, it's a personal problem. It's gross because the subject lines describe a female getting hurt sexually, and frequently one who is a child. I'm personally troubled by reading that several times a day in my email. I guess that makes it a personal problem.
        Is there any images with these e-mails depicting child pornography ?
        Even if they don't, I'd still forward them them to
        ASACP
        NCMEC
        Check out my blog on Kona issues :
        The Kona Blog

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        • #19
          Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

          Originally posted by Konaguy View Post
          Is there any images with these e-mails depicting child pornography ?
          Even if they don't, I'd still forward them them to
          ASACP
          NCMEC
          I wouldn't even think of forwarding them... wouldn't you then be guilty of sending child porn yourself... even if you are sending it to a certain agency?

          Maybe just alert one of those agencies of the email addy that you got it from...but not actually transmit to them what you recieved.

          I trust the Admin and I seriously doubt that getting porn in your email has anything to do with HT.

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          • #20
            Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

            Originally posted by manoasurfer123 View Post
            I wouldn't even think of forwarding them... wouldn't you then be guilty of sending child porn yourself... even if you are sending it to a certain agency?

            Maybe just alert one of those agencies of the email addy that you got it from...but not actually transmit to them what you recieved.

            I trust the Admin and I seriously doubt that getting porn in your email has anything to do with HT.

            Again, I was trying to be helpful and it slapped me in the face. Yes you are
            right, forwarding the actual e-mail depicting child porn would land you in hot
            water. But you can glean the URL and IP from the headers and send it to the
            links above. More importantly immediately delete the e-mail.

            Or better yet, screen your e-mail before you download it and delete and suspicious e-mails (especially ones with attachments).
            Last edited by Konaguy; October 6, 2006, 08:50 PM.
            Check out my blog on Kona issues :
            The Kona Blog

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            • #21
              Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

              Buzzy, who uses your email address? I mean, do your friends have it, or are you only using it for HT? I'm asking because if your friends add you to a mass forward (that is, forwarding the latest "you gotta see this!" email to all of their friends) without using the BCC, your email address is almost certainly out there somewhere. Bots can pick that up.
              But I'm disturbed! I'm depressed! I'm inadequate! I GOT IT ALL! (George Costanza)
              GrouchyTeacher.com

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              • #22
                Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

                Hey all,

                thanks for taking this seriously. I delete the stuff right away, can't forward it without opening it, and I don't open it. No pictures, just really disturbing crap in the subject lines.

                I guess my email address is out there because it's on my business cards! duh, didn't think of that.

                Just wondered if there was a connection here because of the timing - sign up for HT one day, get porn the next, you know.

                Konaguy thanks for links, didn't even know they were out there.

                So I guess I've been protected all this time by a great spam zapper and didn't even know it. Count yer blessings, huh?

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                • #23
                  Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

                  Originally posted by scrivener View Post
                  Buzzy, who uses your email address? I mean, do your friends have it, or are you only using it for HT? I'm asking because if your friends add you to a mass forward (that is, forwarding the latest "you gotta see this!" email to all of their friends) without using the BCC, your email address is almost certainly out there somewhere. Bots can pick that up.
                  I am continually asking my friends to bbc me instead of allowing my email address to be seen. People just don't realize how public a non-bbc, forwarded several times over email addy can be.

                  Have been to Vashon Island, Buzzy... it's beautiful up there!
                  Aloha,
                  Mokihana

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                  • #24
                    Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

                    One other place scammers can harvest email addresses from is from chatroom conversations (you can save chatlogs).

                    Miulang
                    "Americans believe in three freedoms. Freedom of speech; freedom of religion; and the freedom to deny the other two to folks they don`t like.” --Mark Twain

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                    • #25
                      Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

                      There are some really great suggestions here, things I never would have thought of.

                      And yeah, Vashon Island is beautiful. We've had a long sunny summer and fall, with the best blackberry season ever (this island is covered with wild blackberries). I make jelly and juice and just munch em down - the harvest was from the second week of August to just a week ago.

                      Right now the woods are full of fragrance, - sort of a honey, fruity scent from the drying ferns and alder leaves, plus a sort of sweet resin that the cedar trees give off. Been walking trails through the woods wearing an orange vest cause deer season is on.

                      It's nice to hear somebody knows my home.

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                      • #26
                        Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

                        Vashon is very beautiful. We try to get over there at least once a year (love the Maury Island fruit spreads!). One of these summers, I'd love to get over there for the strawberry festival. One of the more interesting sights we discovered one year was that bicycle that's embedded high up in the trunk of a tree (I guess it's considered a local "landmark"). I heard a year or so ago that K2 was planning to move off Vashon to the mainland. Did that happen?

                        Miulang
                        "Americans believe in three freedoms. Freedom of speech; freedom of religion; and the freedom to deny the other two to folks they don`t like.” --Mark Twain

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                        • #27
                          Re: Are you getting porn in your email?

                          I was just on Vashon a couple weeks ago, playing at a mass `ukulele party.

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