Spam alert!

Have your current email address routed to a gmail account which has a very robust spam filter.

Thanks Preston-I’ll try that :-)

Just got the exact same thing from a friend in Australia – Rolex watches for sale. Interesting timing!

ditto on the gmail :))))0

running
b

Happened to me yesterday. On a Gmail-hosted account and I still got dozens in my inbox. (Though Gmail’s spam filter is very very good, all-in-all.)

I have had my own domain for years and it had become unusable because of spam. Hosting it on Gmail has made it quite good and I often recommend it.

The important thing to keep in mind is that any spammer can send mail from your address or your domain—this doesn’t mean that they’ve hacked your site or taken control of any aspect of your mail. They can send as you, but can’t receive mail addressed to you.

If they have accessed your account, say by installing a key-logger at an Internet café where you checked your mail, or sniffed wireless traffic while on an open WiFi connection (very simple to do) then you may be in real trouble. There were a few people hit by this, where the found themselves locked out of their account while their friends received “help me, I’m trapped in a foreign country” emails, begging the friends to wire money to Western Union. (Since they have access to your whole account, they can read old mail and send very personalized mails to trick your friends and family.)

If this happens, contact your email provider immediately and have them lock the account until you can verify your identity.

When traveling, it’s best to avoid using public terminals and net café computers as they can’t be trusted—use your own. If you use open WiFi, either install a VPN (Virtual Private Network) package like HotSpot Shield (http://www.anchorfree.com/downloads/hotspot-shield/ ) or ask your company or agency to set up their own VPN.

HotspotShield is a company that encrypts all of your network traffic in exchange for inserting an ad into the top of web pages you visit. Your data passes through their servers, so it’s not exactly secure from them, so if you have truly sensitive data, you’ll need to consider that, though you will be safe from the guy at the next table running a sniffer program, capturing all of the wireless traffic, looking for passwords. (Anyone sharing the WiFi connection can do this, quite simply.)

Hope this helps.
Jim

Thanks Jim and all. Fortunately my account hasn’t been hacked, just that some idiot or idiots are using my address to send their rubbish out to other people! These spammers are a real pest-I wish there was some way to hit back at them.

OK-my website designer has admitted that the e-mail address on my site was not protected. So it was open to trawling from the bots that these spammers use to find an e-mail they can use in their campaigns. A bit of Javascript means that shouldn’t happen now. What I really need is a bit of Javascript that sends an exocet missile back to the spammers!

I just checked your website, but I can still bring up my e-mail client from clicking on e-mail. So if one is determined, it is possible to manually obtain your e-mail address.

I finally set up a spam filter on my domain e-mail, which has been effective in reducing the spam, and I also switched to the gmail address on my website. There must be some sites having my domain name e-mail published.