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General discussion

Weird Email

Mar 1, 2004 9:54AM PST

I received an email from AOL postmaster indicating that there were fatal errors in a message I was supposed to have sent because the addressee was unknown. One problem--I don't know who the person is since I have no friends who use AOL. The subject of the message was also nothing I recognized. This is the second time I've gotten one of these undeliverable messages and the other one was someone else who I did not know. Do I have a problem? My virus protection is up to date and I scan every week. Outlook is also set up to scan outgoing and incoming messages and attachments.

Discussion is locked

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I received the exact same type of mail which got directed to my Junk Mail Folder.
Mar 1, 2004 11:29AM PST

I deleted them all and kept receiving them for about 3 days. One of the mod's from Virus and Security said it's most likely, a trojan or worm. Just delete them and you should be fine. All my virus and trojan scans came out clean.

Lee

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Yep, Lee's Got It
Mar 1, 2004 12:38PM PST

Most of the newer viruses have the ability to "spoof" the "sender/From" line of the infected messages it sends out. If your e-mail address is "anywhere" on the infected users computer, including a forwarded mail message where you happen to be in the past recipients, the virus grabs your address and places it in the "From" line of the mail message. When the message is mailed out and is unsuccessfuly, (or even if the mail server disallows the message because it's infected) then the mail server "returns" the message to the "Senders" address. The "Sender" appears to be you.

In addition, there are a few viruses which use the "Returned E-mail" as a subject line so you will open the mail or the attachment which is probably infected.

As Lee said....Delete them all.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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Ummm Grif.....Lee (polly parrot, lol) repeated the always great info, Marianna passes on...You M's are all great!!....NT
Mar 1, 2004 9:55PM PST

.

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Re:Weird Email
Mar 1, 2004 10:09PM PST

Probably one or more of your friends with your e-mail address in their address book got infected by a worm which uses that address to send mail randomly- which when undeliverable, got sent back to you as undelivered mail. You did not sent it, but your addeess was used.

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Thank you all!
Mar 2, 2004 9:51AM PST

I suspected it was something like you all described. Boy--the energy that's wasted on this negative stuff, we'd have a cure for cancer if these "smart" people who perpetuate this junk put their "skills" to good use.

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I couldn't agree more with you....NT
Mar 3, 2004 6:56AM PST

.

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Re:Weird Email
Mar 3, 2004 5:44AM PST

There is another posibility u could check out. Take a look at who else is using the computer or computers you use. It is possible some one made up phony e-mail and sent it to you, i've heard this can be done however i don't know how.