Blueyonder email protection

[zeo]

Hi,

I know this should really be in the security section but i also want to find out how many members of TSG forum use blueyonder and have the same problem i'm having.

I've been using blueyonder cable internet for about 2 going on 3 years now.
In that time i've always used blueyonder email address as my main email, but i'm really careful about what i sign up for and whenever i use or give out my email address.

Anyway recently in the space of about 7-8 months now I started receiveing numerous emails of which i believe to be spam. Most have been made to look as if it was sent out by me, and had been failed to deliver and returned by the mailer demon. Often these emails would contain viruses, and the email would almost always also be advertising prosact, viagra and other things..

Anyway i've scanned my system, used hi-jack this and got the all clear. So it nothing to do with me and def spam. I found out other a few other users of blueyonder have also been experienceing the same as me.

Recently blueyonder implamented there new virus scanning service to there email server and now i've been recieving numerous emails from the virus scanning service alerting me of a virus email sent to me. Just last week the number had grown to 46 emails!!

I've tried to contact blueyonder about this but as of yet had no reply.

Are there any other users of blueyonder email that have been experiencing the same problems as me?

 

[angelize56]

Does this help:

How to hide your email address from spammers on Usenet:

Unfortunately spamming is one of the disadvantages of using the Internet and in particular the Newsgroups. If you post to the Newsgroups you will, sooner rather than later, be subjected to spam mail advertising anything from pyramid selling to pornography. There are, however, certain measures that you can take which can reduce the amount of spam mail you receive.

For example you may find that altering your email address is a simple but effective way of reducing incoming spam mail.

In Outlook Express, click on 'tools' then 'accounts' and select the 'news' tab at the top. Highlight your News account and click on 'properties'. You can change your email address here.

In Netscape, click on the 'Edit' menu and select 'Preferences'. Then click on the 'identity' tab under 'mail and newsgroups' and look at the 'email address' field. You will see that your e-mail address is there and this is what spammers use to e-mail you with.

Some people change this address, for example:

[email protected]

to

[email protected]

This means that spammers using this address will have any mails sent to you bounced back to them. However, this will also apply to legitimate users who are trying to e-mail you by clicking 'reply to sender'. One way to get around this is to notify them of the correct reply to address in your signature file, for example:

Technical Support

Telephone: 0800 953 2000
e-mail: support(at)blueyonder.co.uk

(Please remove the NO.THANKS. in the Reply-To address)

Please make sure that you change the domain part of your address, this prevents the spam from clogging up the mail server while it searches for the address. Also make sure that the munged domain you have added isn't a valid domain. Otherwise you risk forcing your spam on an innocent bystander...

Be creative with your mung, and change it often as well. These steps will prevent harvesters from picking up on patterns, and possibly changing their software to defeat them.

Make it obvious to humans.

DO: yourname(AT)example(DOT)com
DO: [email protected] (Replace Z with E)
DO: [email protected]ess

DON'T: [email protected]
If you decide to add a "spamblock" to your existing address, put it on the right-hand side of the @ sign. This avoids making your provider's email server handle undeliverable mail.

DO: [email protected]_THIS-example.com

DON'T: [email protected]
Tell folks how to de-mung your address somewhere in your message. The signature (sig) that gets added to the end of each message is a good place to do this.

DO: "To reply via email, remove '-REMOVE-THIS-' from my address."
DO: "Real address is myrealname AT example DOT com"
DO: "Replace all the Z's with E's to reply"
NOTE: DO NOT put a directly usable address in your sig, because many harvesters collect everything with an @ sign in it.

DO: "Send email to myrealname; ISP is example DOT com"

DON'T: "Real address is [email protected]"
For more advice and tips it might be worth paying a visit to the following newsgroups dedicated to Internet abuse:

news.admin.net-abuse.*
and in particular

news.admin.net-abuse.email
You may also find the following pages of use:

http://help.blueyonder.co.uk/html/abuse/howavoid.shtml
http://shared.blueyonder.co.uk/terms.html
http://abuse.blueyonder.co.uk
There are programs that you can download that monitor your access and limit certain types of material from getting through, try:

http://www.cyberpatrol.com
http://www.netnanny.com
you can also download Cyber patrol from the blueyonder homepages at http://help.blueyonder.co.uk

Some mail clients allow you to set up filters, Outlook has this facility and will block any messages containing chosen keywords.

There are also plenty of online spam trackers that will dissect the spam mail and send abuse reports to the relevant ISPs. One of these is Spamcop, at http://spamcop.net

This is not a service supplied by blueyonder, but can be extremely useful for tracking the source of these messages.

[FAQ maintained by Matt Bloor of blueyonder Technical Support.]

 

[zeo]

no since i dont use usenet or any newsgroups.

 

[Rockn]

Unfortunately if you post your real email address on any web site it is subject to spam. There are programs that do nothing more than harvest email addresses parsed from web pages that spammers use to do their deeds. If you have a personal web page it is a good idea to hide or mask your email adderss from these programs and spammers in general.

 

[zeo]

ok, but no one knows if by any chance this could be just a blueyonder problem?
No other blueyonder users having the same problem?

 

[Rockn]

Are you sure no one else has this problem? I am sure out of their hundreds of thousands of customers someone else is getting spammed. Do you are do you not have a web site? Have you ever posted your email address on a forum or any other prominent place on the internet?

 

[700mb80min]

In all likelihood someone with your e-maill in their address book is infected and the spam won`t stop until they fix it on their end. I get a few of those a week and have had to clean out families systems before , knowing it wasn`t me.

 

[Rockn]

Oh gawd...my in-laws are getting their first computer!! THey live on a farm and don't know how to plug the box thingy into the tv thingy. I think I will keep them off of the internet.

 

[700mb80min]

Sitting a little close to your exhaust pipe today Rockn ?

 

[Tuppence2]

Hello,

I'm a Blueyonder customer.

I now don't use their mail facility, nor do I use Outlook Express, or for that matter, Internet Explorer.

I made the mistake when I first came on line of signing up to newsletters using a particular Blueyonder mail box. I have since deleted the address, keeping a second mail box with them to keep my account active but not using it. I now use www.SAFe-mail.net

"(SAFe-mail is the most secure, easy to use email system. It includes encrypted collaboration features and document storage functions. Always accessible at any time from anywhere!
3 Mb space is free. More space and functionality is supplied under Premium Services. There are no advertisements, downloads or cookies. SAFe-mail supports most hardware platforms and any operating system. Includes spam filters. Full compatibility with most browsers, email clients and all relevant protocols including POP, SMTP, IMAP, S/MIME and PKI)"

and only receive mail from addresses I have added to my address book. The large amount of spam I used to have to deal with continues to be sent to an address which now no longer exists and I don't have to bother with any of it.

My Blueyonder mail address book was hijacked and use for spamming purposes, causing mail to the Cogego server in Canada to be returned. Because of this the address was placed on a black-list and it took Blueyonder many weeks to negotiate and get my address onto a white-list. No matter now as as I said, I don't use the particular address now.

I deleted the Blueyonder address, Outlook Express and, for that matter, Internet Explorer. After deleting the Blueyonder mail box, I reloaded Windows and started afresh.

I also use www.spamjab.com, which sends all mail to an account where is it kept for 7 days and then deleted unless I unblock messages. I can choose to receive a particular mail just that once, or to add the sender to my address book. The spamjab mail account also only forwards to my in-box messages from people in the address book.

For the odd time that I need to give an address, for example for signing up to TSG, I use a third account at myway.com. Should I start receiving spam through this address, I will de-activate it as set up another.

Hope you get your problem sorted.

Bye,
Penny.