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Spam from willus.com: my apologies!

Spam from Willus.com isn't really from Willus.com!

  
  My apologies to anybody who may have received (or may still be receiving) spam e-mail from willus.com with links to porn sites (example below). These are not being sent by me, but by somebody who apparently picked my web site (hopefully at random from a list of registered web sites) to use in the "reply-to" field. On May 16-17, I received over 1000 of these e-mails which bounced from or were refused by various people. I subsequently reported this case to my service provider, the FTC, and the FBI. The letter I sent to the FTC is below.

If you run a spam filter which automatically bounces spam back to the sender, you may want to re-think this policy. The bounced mail can easily be routed to an innocent victim (my case being an example), it adds to internet e-mail congestion, and it rarely has the desired effect. I recommend that you set your program to simply delete spam rather than bouncing it back to the sender.

LETTER TO THE FTC
Hello,

The e-mail below is a spam e-mail that was sent to over 1000 addresses on
5-16-03.  It used my website (willus.com) as a bogus return address, so I
received all of the e-mail bounces due to this perpetrator.  The e-mail
header seems to indicate that the source was IP address 203.51.239.145. 
This e-mail may still be getting sent.  I do not know since my service
provider is now blocking the e-mail bounces from getting back to me.

Willus.com
(service provider prentice-internet.com)

SPAM E-MAIL w/BOGUS RETURN ADDRESS
==================================
Return-Path: <Kathryn@willus.com>
Received: (qmail 28628 invoked from network); 17 May 2003 03:09:46 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO i9aI8r) (203.51.239.145)
  by server.iicinternet.com with SMTP; 17 May 2003 03:09:46 -0000
From: Kathryn <Kathryn@willus.com>
To: (name deleted to protect privacy)
Subject: You've been selected for this offer.
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 20:50:43 -0500
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200



Hey Folks,

I got nice sites here I think you should all check out!

Variety is the spice of life, why should you miss out?

(Links deleted...)

 

This page last modified
Thursday, 16-Oct-2003 14:19:05 MDT