Helpppp

[louiselux]

So I keep getting all these delivery notification status emails to addresses I haven't emailed. I checked both my pc and my laptop for viruses and trojans and things, but nothing shows up. Googling hasn't really helped me understand what's happening either - unless someone is using my email address to send spam. Huh. Which sounds likely.

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Thirding. I occasionally get spates of notifications exactly like that, and the reason I know there couldn't possibly have been anyone in my account and that they were spoofing the email address is that the addresses of mine that they were using were aliases - inboxes that don't exist but are forwarded to another inbox I own. There is no possible way to send email from those addresses; thus the bot scraped 'em from the Web or someone else's address book.

I use aliases for spam control, mostly - when I have to register for a webpage, I tend to use [nameofwebsite]spam@telophase.net as the email address. Everything sent to [anything]@telophase.net forwards to my real email address, so I know what site is selling the emails/compromised/spamming etc., and I can filter them into a spam folder if necessary.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's what happening to me - spoof inboxes that are forwarded to others of mine.

That's really useful advice about aliases, actually. Thank you :)