What Is This?--( Name, followed by--re: (18) )

Hi All,

Every few days I get an e-mail from different people sent to my Yahoo e-mail address that has a subject line: (Person's name) followed by re: (and then a number such as 18).

Here's an example: John Doe re: (18)

Is this someone trying to send out a virus or something?......This has been going on for a year or more now.

It always gets sent to my bulk folder and I don't bother to open it, I just delete it.

Thanks

 

Hi James Martin,

I would be suspicious, too. Haven't seen anything like that, but get occasional emails from various someones I don't know and AVG, an antivirus prog., finds the body contains a virus, so they get deleted.

You're doing the right thing.

 

Hi Sparrow,

I am tempted to open it so it can be scanned by Yahoo's anti-virus program, but I don't like to open anything that might cause me to get more spam, if you know what I mean.

 

AVG (free) scans emails without having to open them. Pretty safe.

 

I have AVG. I guess I'll forward the next one to my ISP's mailbox.

 

Sounds like a bot, either a spambot or one in a virus.

Do not worry, it is not your machine , but someone elses.

Basically spammers and viruses share some things in common.
They use harvesters, in the case of spammers, these tend to scan web pages like the ones in this forum for email addresses; in the case of viruses and worms they scan the drives and files of an infected computer for potential email addresses. They then use this database and spoof one as a sender and another as a recipient then they generate a subject. By putting re:......
They are trying to make you think this is a response to an email you sent so that you will open it.
WHy? Well many viruses these days do not require you open the attachement, just opening the email is enough.
Likewise, spammers want you to open the email . Most spam now contains invisible one by one pixel gifs with unique identifying numbers. When opened, the call for that number is placed to a remote server, where they can compare it to a list of email addresses they spammed. Then they can tell which ones were opened and hence are real email addresses which they can sell to other spammers.

So the bottom line is turn off preview pane (View/layout in OE) and do not open spam or any email you do not recognize.

 

Is there a way to scan for those 1 pixel gif 's ?

I hardly get any spam via OE6, but occasionally one will show up. I accidently opened one or two spam messages recently, but the security feature in SP2 had a little message at the top, and it was telling me that it had blocked some information that would have ID'ed my PC.

So now I have new message rules in place so I can filter my e-mail a little better. This helps me to "not jump the gun" and open something too quickly before seeing what the subject line is.

Good idea about disabling the preview pane, I took care of that after I installed XP Home.

 

There is a way to detect them , but so far no one scans for and deletes them.

http://www.bugnosis.org/


Has a web bug detector for IE which makes them show up in web pages.

http://www.bugnosis.org/faq.html
Has some more info on what they are.

Basically it is yet another "technology" of the internet which has been adapted by spammers to their nefarious purposes, much as they have adapted bots to scan the web for email addresses posted in the open on forums.

 

Would the following Firefox option reduce, disable, block "Web Bug's mechanism??
Tools - Options - Web Features - Load images - for the originating web site only

 

There a few apps that will block them:

One is Proxomitron, a proxy web filtering app: http://castlecops.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=index&c=14

Another is the paid versions of ZoneAlarm.

Regards - Charles

 

Good to know. I wonder if other firewalls have that option.
I'll have to check it out.