On 25 Oct 2006 at 21:31, Christine Wakeham wrote:

> Has anyone got any other suggestion, other than a hard disk format, to
> resolve the problem of my e-mail account being used to send out SPAM
> please.  For about a month now I have been receiving numerous
> "undeliverable mail" e-mails, for e-mails that I have not sent. 
> 
> If I have to format, then so be it - but if there is any other way - I
> would be pleased to know! 

  If your machine were infected with a "spambot" bit of malware, a format 
might be the last resort to get rid of it.  But it is extremely unlikely 
that the spam sent by that malware would have your email address on it, so 
that's probably not what you're seeing.

  More likely, you're being "joe jobbed" -- some spammer is using your 
address as the "From:" header on his junk, so the various rejects and 
bounces come to you and not to him.
  That has happened to me three or four times over the years.  Until the 
most recent time, the spammers always moved on within a week or so to dump 
their garbage on somebody else.

  The most recent time was different -- it kept on for months.  You don't 
specify whether these messages all have your specific email address, or 
whether you have your own domain and these messages are using made-up 
addresses claiming to exist in that domain.  Mine was the latter case; I 
finally talked to my ISP, and was able to arrange a block so that only 
domain addresses that I've told them are "real" get through.
  Your ISP may be able to help' you've given us no reason to believe that a 
format will make the slightest difference.

David Gillett

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