# Email message from Vice-chairman



## paulatt (Oct 28, 2002)

I have just received an email message form the Vice Chairman of the TTOC.
It got caught by the spam checker in work as it contained an attachment. The email message gave me an Archive password? :?:

Can anyone tell me what this is about? A virus maybe?


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## hutters (Jul 16, 2002)

sounds like someone has a virus and has spammed you. i very much doubt it wil be Clive, it will be someone with both [email protected] and your email address in their address book. it's very easy to make an email look like it has come from someone else when in fact it hasn't.

it's not something we would send out, so don't open it


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

Yeah, I got one (actually dozens everyday) over the weekend... sent to me, from me with a virus attached :roll: Couldn't be my machine, cos the email is web-based.

There must be loads of people out there with virus ridden pc's. Please can everyone update their virus protection and run a full scan. You know you can get free virus scanning software! Not only will you stop all the virus spam, but you may also find that your pc runs significantly quicker afterwards!!

Do it!


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## paulatt (Oct 28, 2002)

I guessed it was a virus and didnt open the attachment! :roll: 
Thought I would post it up as a warning to others.


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

Hi Paula..... ah, so that was you I've just replied to in a long winded and technical manner then! 

Graeme is correct - looks like someone who has my [email protected] e-mail address and your e-mail address in their address book has a virus. I suspect that the image in the e-mail contains the dodgy code...

Clive (really, it's me  )


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## paulatt (Oct 28, 2002)

I suspect that lots of other TTOC members will also be getting a nice message too! :roll:


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

Depends on how many TTOC members the person with the virus has in their address book!


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## paulatt (Oct 28, 2002)

clived said:


> Depends on how many TTOC members the person with the virus has in their address book!


I wonder who.......... :wink:


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

I'm getting random spam but no forum based e-mail attachments 

A good way to stop it is to notify your e-mail/internet provider at: -
[email protected]
they have to take action acording to their contracts!!


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## MacBuff (Aug 11, 2004)

nutts said:


> Yeah, I got one (actually dozens everyday) over the weekend... sent to me, from me with a virus attached :roll: Couldn't be my machine, cos the email is web-based.
> 
> There must be loads of people out there with virus ridden pc's. Please can everyone update their virus protection and run a full scan. You know you can get free virus scanning software! Not only will you stop all the virus spam, but you may also find that your pc runs significantly quicker afterwards!!
> 
> Do it!


At the Uni, they run SpamAssiasin on the mail hubs. SA flags any message with a positive score for each type of violation, or a negative score the more genuine a message appears. Normally a message with a score of +9 is considered as real SPAM, but I have found that limit set a bit high as a lot of SPAM was still getting through so I lowered my mail server to +2 and its very rare that a real message gets flagged in error.

Any message with an unsafe attachment is modified so that the attachment can't do any harm..

My mail server filters out any of these flagged messages to a file which I clear out when I get around to it - usually once a day..

Since this morning the file has 402 messages in it, and the odds are it will have gathered another 400 or so by tomorow morning.

The messages that do get through that system that are still SPAM are usually caught by the Mail program on my Mac laptop..

I did get a peak of 18000 (eighteen thousand) SPAMS in a day once, but only 20 or so managed too filter through..

John


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

A3DFU said:


> I'm getting random spam but no forum based e-mail attachments
> 
> A good way to stop it is to notify your e-mail/internet provider at: -
> [email protected]
> they have to take action acording to their contracts!!


Erm, but of course this would mean reporting ttoc.co.uk in this case wouldn't it? And of course as it isn't us sending the e-mails, but a virus on someone else's PC spoofing them, all that will do is stop genuine TTOC e-mails getting through!


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

We run Spam Assasin on the mail server and setting the score correctly is a real pain... There is no exact number to set it at... so we either get spam getting thru or real mail caught in the spam folder :?

I guess it does at least an 80% job though...



MacBuff said:


> nutts said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah, I got one (actually dozens everyday) over the weekend... sent to me, from me with a virus attached :roll: Couldn't be my machine, cos the email is web-based.
> ...


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

clived said:


> A3DFU said:
> 
> 
> > I'm getting random spam but no forum based e-mail attachments
> ...


Surely it would have the virus affected computer's header in it??

And I would assume that no-one would fw genuine emails to the [email protected] address???


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## MacBuff (Aug 11, 2004)

A3DFU said:


> ..
> Surely it would have the virus affected computer's header in it??
> 
> And I would assume that no-one would fw genuine emails to the [email protected] address???


There's no guarantee that the addresses in the header are genuine, as most of the header can be forged, so you might be reporting an innocent party to their ISP's abuse address.

And replying to such a message or forwarding to their abuse address just confirms your address is valid, so you might be opening up the flood gates a little wider.

The best thing to do with any bogus message is junk it.

John


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## paulatt (Oct 28, 2002)

So is it only me that is getting these personal spam messages from Clive, our esteemed Vice-chairman? :wink:

I feel very privileged!


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## MacBuff (Aug 11, 2004)

paulatt said:


> So is it only me that is getting these personal spam messages from Clive, our esteemed Vice-chairman? :wink:
> 
> I feel very privileged!


I might be getting the message as well, but the odds are that its been diverted to the bit-bucket before it gets to my mailbox... 

John


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

MacBuff said:


> A3DFU said:
> 
> 
> > ..
> ...


I certainly never reply to any spam messages and I never open attachments if I don't know where they are coming from.

So, is it harmful if I fw messages to abuse address?? I'm under the impression that this is what you should do??
Sorry for asking, I'm no great computer boffin.


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

Depends if you want to get all mail from the ttoc.co.uk domain banned by your ISP Dani when it's someone else's lack of virus protection that's causing the problem! Or put another way, no.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Thanks, Clive


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