[Techtalk] sent email without appearing in sent folder?

[James]

On Sat, 21 Sep 2002, Carla Schroder wrote:

> On Saturday 21 September 2002 06:03 pm, Dave North wrote:
> > James:
> > > However, there is at least one "in
> > > the wild" which implements its own SMTP client
> >
> > I believe Klez uses its own smtp; in that event, the Mailer Of Choice
> > (normally outlook for Klez victims) would have no record of the mail sent.
> 
> Thanks everyone. I don't believe Klez or anything related has infected my Red 
> Hat box. What got me wondering is I've been getting some really weird spam, 
> messages that purport to be ones that I sent, that bounced. I run them 
> through Sam Spade and Spamcop to see where they are really coming from, and 
> they don't come from me. But it's puzzling- what is the point??

Ahhh... Fake bounces are one of the tricks spammers use to get people 
reading their junk. (It may also help them get past spam filters, since 
you wouldn't want to filter out mailer errors.)

There are also some dumb mailservers out there which appear to accept mail 
like an open-relay, but then reject it (i.e. bounce it) - which spammers 
can exploit by sending mail *from* the recipient, which then gets bounced 
'back' to the intended recipient.

Don't worry: this doesn't mean you're virus-laden, or that you've been 
sleep-spamming - just that spammers will do almost anything to shovel 
their junk into your inbox :-(


James.