[ILUG] Why these spam messages?

[Michael Watterson]

Ivan Griffin wrote:
>
> If they are real addresses, it might simply be someone trying to 
> harvest your webmail password.
>
> If not, some possible suggestions:
> * it might be someone validating addresses in a SPAM database?
A trick is to have a unique image, even one dot per address sent. Then 
if the image is read, the email was delivered and opened.
 -- I disable automatic remote images. Then the resource is never accessed.
> * it might be trying to infect you with some malware, to recruit your 
> box into a botnet etc.  There are any number of mechanisms for this - 
> an image which causes a decoder buffer overrun for instance -- in 
> which case the surrounding email text might be just a pure subterfuge 
> to get past your SPAM detection SW.

Other aspects may involve html /scripts calling home. If you are 
especially concerned set your email to use a web proxy for all http. put 
127.0.0.1 (or ::1 or whatever the ip6 is if you useit) as the proxy, 
assuming your email client runs on a machine with no proxy server.
Then no html content at all works. Of course then remote images don't 
work even if you want them.

Don't use webmail unless it has such settings. By and large pop3 clients 
such as Thunderbird are safer.