Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 01:12:59 PM
My ISP, adelphia.net has not a clue about them either, they helped me set up filters, but that only helped a little.
I do assume these are harmless, but I would guess the attachments have virus or bad stuff in them for PCs. As most of them do say "Permanent fatal errors", whatever that means.
jcarter11 at adelphia.net is the address my cable ISP gave me, but I dont use it much. Though I could use their webmail if I was away from home if I wanted to.
A lot of them say "This message was undeliverable due to something or other"
Do you have any idea what these are? Or how to stop them?
They really dont bother me, except I have to hit delete about 15 times a day.
Thank you in advance,
Jane
Post by: kbeartx on May 27, 2006, 01:20:53 PM
You are correct - these are virus-generated msgs, designed to trick you into opening the Payload containing the virus [the .zip file attachment].
Someone who has your email address is using an infected Peasea.
They can't do any harm to your Mac, even if you try to open the .zip, but they are annoying.
Depending on your email app, you might be able to write a filter or rule to send such msgs directly to the Trash w/o appearing in your inbox.
- KB
Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 01:33:43 PM
I would be interesting to see how this happened, perhaps someone with an infected PC could be sending these out to lots of people?
Gee, that would be nasty, as they have my address on them. I sure wonder how this happened. Do you think that these are being sent as if they are actually from me? And wonder why they come back?
Very very odd, or is this somewhat common?
Jane
Post by: D76 on May 27, 2006, 02:12:26 PM
If you use Apple's Mail, and you want to see the email (without opening it), set up a rule such as this from Mail's Rules in the preferences:
Description: Fatal Error
If any of the following conditions are met:
Message Content Contains permanent fatal error
Perform the following actions:
Move Message to mailbox Trash (or Junk or somewhere else)
If you don't care to see the email, change "Perform the following actions" to Delete.
Permanent fatal error seems to be the only consistency in all the emails if the sender's address and the subject always change, so I used that. But I doubt you get any other mail with permanent fatal error in the message.
If you don't use Apple's Mail, the other mail apps can do the same with their filters.
Post by: Mayo on May 27, 2006, 02:40:00 PM
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for infected PCs to distribute these kinds of messages to folks in their address books. A family friend's PC began doing this several years ago and we were inundated with e-mail messages with various attachments. But we were able to easily see where the e-mails originated and we alerted him to the problem.
It turned out that our friend had not one but two viruses infecting his home PC.
Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 04:32:54 PM
Yes, this is the only time Ive ever seen the permanent fatal error thing anywhere.
Some of the emails look like this,
Gibberish, eh?
I wonder if somebody with in infected PC had my email address in their book, and thats what is happening?
Thanks again for the help, I am curious of how these things happen. Darn glad we have Macs!
Jane
Post by: Mayo on May 27, 2006, 05:15:58 PM
When my friend's PC was infected he didn't have a clue until I alerted him about the problem.
To expand the e-mail headers in Apple Mail: Go to the View menu and select Message and then Long Headers.
Post by: Klaus1 on May 27, 2006, 05:45:01 PM
Bounce those messages. You will get a message back saying that the sender does not exist, but you have alerted whomsoever about their existance and they will soon stop, as their ISP will be alerted.
'Bouncing', as you probably know, gives the recipient a message saying that your email address does not exist.
They are as described above, but will not harm a Mac user. Just don't open them.
Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 05:48:04 PM
Tried that and never recognized anything at all, nothing even close.
I would love to be able to track down how and where this all started!
Sent the expanded headers to my ISP but they still did not know anything. Finally I got another tech support guy on the phone who seemed to know more, he told me to set up the filters which I did. But beyond that, they knew nothing?
Would Tacit know? He seems to be good in tracking down stuff.
It is somewhat scary to know that they actually have my proper ISP mail? So this sort of goes beyond spam, now that it has gone on for months.
An infected PC, wow, that makes me think that I would never ever want one after this.
This is really interesting, I want to keep looking at this, and I thank you all for your input.
Its almost FUN to work on troubleshooting like this! Educational for someone like me, who has not been in the PC world much.
To be continued,,,,,,,,,
Jane
I must learn how to Bounce! Sounds like a good idea.
Can you do this with Mac Mail, or have to use my ISP mail?
Jane
Post by: Klaus1 on May 27, 2006, 06:35:49 PM
QUOTE(jcarter @ May 27 2006, 11:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I must learn how to Bounce! Sounds like a good idea.
Can you do this with Mac Mail, or have to use my ISP mail?
Jane
Can you do this with Mac Mail, or have to use my ISP mail?
Jane
You have two choices:
1, A trampoline, and
2. Go to 'Message' in mail's menu and click on Bounce!
Post by: Mayo on May 27, 2006, 07:12:58 PM
One thing to consider doing is to create a new e-mail account at Adelphia (which can probably be done online without having to call your ISP), and then sign-up for an e-mail forwarding service like Pobox.com.
For $20/year you can create up to three Pobox.com addresses and have mail forwarded from them to the new Adelphia account. (For example, you can create a personal e-mail adddress, a biz address and a "public" address for Web site registrations, etc.) Pobox.com has excellent spam filters should you begin receiving any spam; I used the service for over five years before I began receiving spam that required filtering.
Don't use the Adelphia account to send any mail; it will be "secret." Create an Adelphia account name that will be very difficult for spammers to guess,like a password with letters, numerals, etc. Set up Mail to just check the Adelphia account and use your Pobox.com addresses to send mail.
Let your correspondents know about the change in your address and start off fresh. You can sign-up online for a free thirty day trial at Pobox.com to see if it works for you.
Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 07:23:32 PM
But I think this address is where all my mail comes into?
So if I change it, I might not get my mail, or some of it?
Yet I get most mail with janec3 at .mac and jane at jcarter.net
But I do think that these others that I use all the time could have been compromised, as Ive seen them once in a while in the Long Headers of this horrid stuff?
Tried bouncing before and it didnt make any difference at all.
This is really interesting!
Jane
Post by: Mayo on May 27, 2006, 07:53:22 PM
It is possible that both accounts are compromised. If you place an open e-mail link on your Web page it is easy for spammers to automatically scan your Web site and add your e-mail address to their lists. While there are some methods for disguising an open e-mail link, it is much better to use a "form" when you want to be contacted through your Web site, preventing spammers from gaining access to your active e-mail accounts. E-mail accounts that are linked to a Web site should not be "generic," such as "administrator at jcarter.net." It should be possible to set-up your Web site e-mail account to refuse any mail that isn't addressed to specific addresses you have created.
It sounds to me that your e-mail set-up is a little complicated. Have you considered simplifying it?
Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 08:25:08 PM
And it is so easy for me, just click and my mail comes in fine, not really complicated. Just one click.
If I could only figure out which they have compromised, then we could work on a solution.
I do know my .mac mail has very little trouble, and the jane at jcarter.net is new.
But I do think that its the @adelphia.net that is the problem target.
As it seems to be the email address that all this crap comes to.
Oh, almost forgot, my original email address, jcarter at capecod.net is not compromised as far as I know.
It has been bought by Earthlink and they told me that this is not where these bad things are getting their entrance. It is the cable ISP, Adelphia. Thats what they say anyway.
I cant decypher the long headers, to see what is the way these have gotten into my email system.
Im not at all techie enough, thats why I decided after several months of the DELETE everyday, that I would run this mess by you experts here.
I really cant give up the capecod.net and the .mac.com ones nor the .jcarter ones as they are the ones that my kids and family dont block. They block adelphia.net so its almost useless to me, cept it is webmail.
Gee, this gets complicated, just wish I could TRACK the original leak, so if perhaps if it comes in thru the ISP adelphia, I could change it to jcarter(whatever) at adelphia.net.
Whew, this is rather an interesting thing. If it is what you say, some PC person who has my adelphia address in their infected address book, then the way to figure out who this is and help them dis-infect their PC or whatever they have to do, would be the end of this?
Yes, this is really educational! Its not perhaps worth me changing all my email, if all I have to do is hit delete 20 times a day. But its the way this got going in the first place that intrigues me.
Jane
Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 09:03:46 PM
You all are wonderful! This has been a pain for months, and I think youve solved it, get rid of Fatal Errors and whatever by the filter set up.
I dont think I have my email on any of my anemic websites, and would not know how to set up a form anyway, perhaps not needing it.
Oh, yes, I do have 'contact me' on the .mac ones.
Working on this! Tis fun for me to learn, and this seems to have slowed the tide a lot.
Jane
Post by: kbeartx on May 27, 2006, 09:05:54 PM
You ought to be able to look at the header data in these msgs to determine unambiguously which email account they are being sent to.
B/c current email protocol allows for forged [spoofed] data to be included unquestioningly, it's diffficult or impossible to trace msgs back to their actual sender.
- KB
Post by: Mayo on May 27, 2006, 09:19:43 PM
Sounds to me like the first thing to do is drop the Adelphia account altogether and see what happens... Do you really need the web mail access that Adelphia offers? If you do, does one of your other e-mail accounts offer a web mail alternative? Do you use multiple e-mail addresses with your family and friends? Why not boil it down to one address just for family and friends? Use another for business. Since most e-mail accounts allow for multiple e-mail addresses you won't need three separate e-mail accounts.
BTW, terminology-wise your .Mac account doesn't "grab" the e-mail from your other accounts, you must have those accounts configured to "forward" mail to .Mac. You can also elect to have Mail check each e-mail account separately (I'm assuming that Mail can do this...I use Eudora.)
The less forwarding you do and using the minimum number of e-mail accounts to meet your needs translates to headers that are less complicated to decipher. You can then use the filtering built-in to your e-mail program to funnel messages into appropriate mailboxes so that everything doesn't wind up in your "In" box.
In my case I currently have nine e-mail addresses at Pobox.com that are forwarded to my cable ISP e-mail account. Eudora checks that e-mail account and filters my mail into 29 mailboxes I have created. I don't receive e-mail at all 29 boxes every day, but by sorting my mail using Eudora's filters I can instantly see where the e-mail is coming from and decide what I should deal with now and what I can save for later. I also created a "Replies Needed" mailbox where I transfer messages that don't require an immdeiate response.
For example, e-mail notices of topics I subscribe to at TS are placed in the TechSurvivors mailbox in my "Mailing Lists" e-mail folder. Since I have Eudora set to indicate mailboxes with new mail in BOLD letters, it takes a second to see when something new has arrived. If I wanted to, I could have Eudora open the mailbox or the individual messages automatically. (I generally use that feature when working on an important project or I am involved in an e-mail "conversation" with someone.)
I am beginning to plan a trip to Europe this fall. I created a "Europe 2006" mail folder and I will create a temporary "Europe 2006" e-mail address to make filtering messages easier. All e-mail communications relating to our trip will wind-up in the "Europe 2006" folder, making it a snap to keep track of plane and hotel reservations, among other things. There is a nine-hour difference between the U.S. west coast and western Europe, so keeping track of the e-mail replies is easier this way. I will know where to find travel-related e-mails and just before I leave I will print copies of confirmation e-mails to take with us on the trip.
It might sound complicated, but it only takes a moment to set-up mailboxes and filters and it makes managing e-mail a LOT simpler.
Post by: D76 on May 27, 2006, 09:25:13 PM
QUOTE(jcarter @ May 27 2006, 10:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Oh, this is working, just set up the filters and have not gotten any more for a good while!
Terrific! I should have mentioned that its easy to test the filter(s) by sending yourself an email with the offending phrase in the message body, so you don't have to wait hours to see if it works. F'rinstance:The quick brown fox jumped over the permanent fatal error.
Or simply three words: permanent fatal errors.
I had tested it with my Mail app, and it didn't matter whether it was upper or lower case. But I made it the singular "error" so the phrase wouldn't slip past if it arrives with the singular "error" instead of "errors." The singular covers both.
Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 09:51:21 PM
I dont have any business mail, as I am an old phart and long since retired, but this would be a good thing to do, to separate family, class, and regular mail.
And perhaps make a webshopping one too.
But at the moment, this stuff is not happening! I think filtering out permanent fatal errors has really poured the insecticide onto this problem!
Ive got to turn in, as I did spend a lot of time playing in the dirt with grandson and buddies, and then my own messy flower planting project, and am really tired. but will be up early studying all this whole thread!
Thank you all, you are the Mac school of the century!
Jane
Post by: krissel on May 27, 2006, 09:57:01 PM
In the future write out the email addresses or do something so they aren't seen as valid or you will be fighting much more spam than ever before.
Post by: jcarter on May 27, 2006, 10:11:03 PM
I will take Poison Ivy anytime! I can spray that stuff dead. Wont go into what we did to a carpenter ant nest today, just wish we could do the same to these mailbox invaders.
Jane
Post by: Mayo on May 28, 2006, 01:46:04 AM
I haven't had to deal with much spam of late and the filters I made years ago don't see any use, so I'm a little rusty on the subject.
Post by: antony on May 28, 2006, 02:15:58 AM
QUOTE(jcarter @ May 28 2006, 07:32 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Wow, Thank you! I will set these filters up just as soon as I can, probably will set them up in both Apple Mail and my ISP, Adelphia.
Yes, this is the only time Ive ever seen the permanent fatal error thing anywhere.
Some of the emails look like this,
Gibberish, eh?
I wonder if somebody with in infected PC had my email address in their book, and thats what is happening?
Thanks again for the help, I am curious of how these things happen. Darn glad we have Macs!
Jane
Yes, this is the only time Ive ever seen the permanent fatal error thing anywhere.
Some of the emails look like this,
Gibberish, eh?
I wonder if somebody with in infected PC had my email address in their book, and thats what is happening?
Thanks again for the help, I am curious of how these things happen. Darn glad we have Macs!
Jane
It looks like a spam without correctly encoded for its language. -> spam.
I won't recommend "bouncing" back. Most of them simply ignored your "bounce" as the sender's email address are usually fake.
To combat SPAM, you can simply forward the spam email to spam@uce.gov (detail at http://www.ftc.gov/spam/ ).
Or you can report it to http://www.spamcop.net/ , they will try their best to track down the IP address of the sender or ISP.
My two cents.
Post by: jcarter on May 28, 2006, 09:39:27 AM
That Filter sure is slick.
Ive tried spamcop and also reporting to ftc.gov but nothing works there.
Got a new somewhat annoying problem, I dont know what I did to hide my Junk mailbox.
I need to get my Junk mailbox back where I want it in the line up of mailboxes.
Here,
http://www.picturetrunk.com/uploads/2bd7964070.jpg
Ive tried dragging it back to where it was, by itself in plain sight.
Here is where it is hiding now,
http://www.picturetrunk.com/uploads/bf65708efb.jpg
And I tried to drag it back between Sent and Trash boxes, but it wont go.
In mail help, it said just to drag mailboxes where you want them to go.
Wont do it however.
I wonder what I did wrong to make it hide.
That would be all I need to do, just to get it back in the lineup.
So happy you showed me how to set up filters to get rid of all this bad spam.
Just worried that I might not be getting mail that should be going into Junk box, until I put whoever into my address book.
Thank you in advance again,
Jane
Post by: D76 on May 28, 2006, 10:08:20 AM
QUOTE(jcarter @ May 28 2006, 10:39 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I dont know what I did to hide my Junk mailbox.
I need to get my Junk mailbox back where I want it in the line up of mailboxes.
I tried moving the junk mailbox, but it keeps ending up inside other folders.I need to get my Junk mailbox back where I want it in the line up of mailboxes.
I discovered, though, that if you drag the junk folder to very bottom of the window, it will free itself from within all the other folders.
Post by: jcarter on May 28, 2006, 10:39:46 AM
I will try again,,,,,,
Jane
Post by: D76 on May 28, 2006, 11:01:29 AM
Now click the triangle on the new folder and slowly drag the junk folder down (try all the way to the bottom, again).
Otherwise, when still dragging slowly, a horizontal black line should appear between two other folders. When it does, release the junk folder. Don't forget t delete the extra folder you had created. You may have to tell the thing twice to delete it.
Post by: jcarter on May 28, 2006, 11:39:35 AM
1.3.11 (v622/624) is my version of Mail, perhaps it is old enough that it is
a bit different. Thus not as versitile? I wonder if I upgraded to the latest version, if this would work.
Jane