[Sussex] SPAM Warning

[aotley at gmail.com]

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/techandgadgets/article-23999536-hacked-off-with-google-security.do

On 31 Oct 2011, at 18:04, Steve Dobson <steve at dobbo.org> wrote:

> Hi All
> 
> I believe that we have been targetted by a spammer.
> 
> My SPAM filter trapped an e-mail that claimed to be from Frank James
> (frank.james4 at btinternet.com) and that he was currently in Madrid, had
> just been mugged, and was asking for help paying his hotel bill because
> the local police and the embassy were not being helpful.
> 
> Has Frank gone to Spain?
> 
> I am suspicious because a friend in the Eastbourne Photographic Society
> received a very similar e-mail from someone he knew claiming the exact
> same thing a month or so back.  He investigated, found the e-mail to be
> bogus and warned the rest of us.
> 
> When I looked at the e-mail headers it does appear to have passed though
> the lug.org.uk mail server. I also noticed that the Reply-To header had
> been set to "frank.jamse4 at yahoo.com", which is not the e-mail address
> Frank uses when talking to this list.
> 
> Luckily being an admin of the list I was able to check the spam trap
> there and a copy of the e-mail is waiting there for approval.  The
> notice on the approval form has the following automatic messages:
> 
>    Blind carbon copies or other implicit destinations are not
>    allowed. Try reposting your message by explicitly including the
>    list address in the To: or Cc: fields.
> 
> Why would Frank BCC this e-mail to the list?  That doesn't make sense to
> me.  This has all the hallmarks of a spammer, because using the BCC
> field is one trick spammers use to hide the number of e-mail addresses
> they are sending their spam to.
> 
> Frank, I hope your still hail and hearty.  I hope you aren't visiting
> Spain at the moment and haven't been mugged at gun point.
> 
> I haven't done anything with the e-mail on the list waiting for approval
> in case Fay wishes to look at it too.
> 
> Hoping you are all okay (esp. Frank)
> Steve
> -- 
> Steve Dobson
> 
> --
> Sussex mailing list
> Sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk
> E-mail Address: sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk
> Sussex LUG Website: http://www.sussex.lug.org.uk/
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