Print Page - Spam took over one of my email addresses

Welcome to Techsurvivors => Tech => Topic started by: jcarter on June 10, 2014, 06:11:38 AM

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on June 10, 2014, 06:11:38 AM

Just read the other thread about spam.
One of my addresses is getting bombarded, so I asked my webhost to up their filtering. It helped but not much.
So they recommended this
https://customers.machighway.com/knowledgeb...icle&id=148
I asked if they had heard of Spamsieve, he said no.

So I guess I need to decide which, and I know you all recommend Spamsieve.

This is the first time any of my email addresses has been bombarded like this.
Everything from buying a small commuter jet, to stimulating my brain, just plain garbage, with no way to find out where it came from, or what site grabbed my email.

I wont buy or do anything till I get your advice here, as you all are the best,
Thanks,
Jane

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on June 10, 2014, 08:27:47 AM

QUOTE(jcarter @ Jun 10 2014, 07:11 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jane, is it absolutely essential that you actually KEEP this email address? Could you, even with a little work (emailing any legitimate contacts that actually use it) change it to a NEW address? This is by far the most effective way of getting rid of spam - abandon the address. I'm assuming that since it's via MacHighway, it's an address attached to your domain? If so, you should be able to easily create a new email address for yourself and carry on. Just don't choose one of the obvious ones like "info@", "admin@", etc. etc. Also, don't use your name by itself as in "jane@"** or they'll guess that eventually as well. If you have their "small" plan, you've got 20 email addresses, if the medium, you've got unlimited email addresses.

**um....I see you already have that one, and it's hiding in plain sight on your site, so if that's the one that's being spammed, it's no wonder. Spambots cruise websites looking for the "@" - and they look in the code and the text. If it's there, they find it. You have two alternatives - obscure the "@" with ASCII characters, which is surprisingly effective, or, use a contact form that doesn't have your email address anywhere IN it. The former requires that you substitute "& # 64;" without the quotes or the spaces - if I type it correctly here, the browser will turn it into an @. Please read this: https://www.projecthoneypot.org/how_to_avoid_spambots.php Note: you will have to hand code the HTML on your site.

Short of that, I'd train Mail to dump the offenders with various filters: things that aren't addressed to you, key words etc. I wouldn't pay my ISP another $5 a month for spam filtering, that's for sure (and of COURSE he was going to offer something that would cost you more!)

As for avoiding spam in the future, that's where Gmail or Yahoo become useful if you don't have access to unlimited email addresses or want to make use of Gmail's quite good spam filtering. Get yourself a couple of Gmail addresses to use for anything other than communication with friends and family. I have a tier of them - very trusted (amazon et al), not so trusted (sites that I've not dealt with, email newsletters etc.) and not at all trusted. The last one is a Yahoo address I rarely check and don't include in Mail.

Then, be very, very, careful about where you use your email address. If any of these email addresses become totally "polluted" you simply shut them down and get new ones.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on June 10, 2014, 08:47:49 AM

Thank you! I was a bit leery about paying for that service, but have been watching you all recommending Spamsieve.

Yes it belongs to one of my domains. I really need this email address, jane(at)jcdouglass(dot)net as its one of the family ones. It would be very difficult to have to change it.
Its the one we can send very large jpg, psd, and mov files thru.

The MacMail filters work perfectly, all of this new spam goes into my junk folder on the computer, but it clogs up my iPhone. And I have to delete them one by one.
The computer is easy, I just highlight the spam folder and hit delete once. Whether its 3 or 33, I can get rid of them very quickly. So maybe I will just have to deal with it.

Odd that this one is not the one I use for shopping, its just a family email.
(I dont use Gmail much.)

Would Spamsieve help? Or would it just duplicate the job that MacMail does,,,,, I can easily just continue to delete the spam folder a couple times a day.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on June 10, 2014, 09:32:20 AM

QUOTE

Would Spamsieve help? Or would it just duplicate the job that MacMail does

In my humble opinion, it certainly would! The two methods are totally different.

Mail allows you to set up specific rules (although there may be some ways to include 'wild cards' or some kind of variables). You are the one who sets up each and every rule and it's details. That takes time and if you make it too strong, you'll have to edit it or you may miss emails from valid senders.

Spamsieve works differently. First, it has a built-in list of rules that it automatically uses. But when something come in that you consider SPAM, you simply 'tell' the app to block/dump that kind of message. It looks at the entire message, not just the sender's address but even the text in the body and many other items common to emails. This way, the app "learns" more about what you consider SPAM. It takes time to help the app do this 'learning' but it becomes less and less time as it builds up its rules.

Be aware that what you call SPAM may not be classified that way by others. My wife tends to put any commercial message into the SPAM box and often tells Spamsieve they are SPAM. But that is like throwing the baby out with the bath water! Just about any commercial site you 'register' on or order from will want to send you email. That's the reason they always (99.999% of the time, anyway) ask for an email address.

But that isn't the definition of SPAM.

'Rule checking' is where a big difference between Mail's rules and Spamsieve shows up:
In Mail, you'll have to take time to decide what to change in the rule you may have created or make one that allows a particular sender to be accepted. In Mail, you'll also need to decide where to place that rule, it uses rules in a linear fashion; it starts with the first one in the list and compares each message to them, one at a time. The first rule that affects the message is the one that is applied. If the rule you edit create about a particular message is below the one that actually dumped a message, it will never have a chance to be used. Any tweeking you do in that second rule may be for naught, a rule higher in the list may be the one that you need to edit. "Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to figure out what that earlier rule is." That could really be a lot of work if you have lots of rules!

Spamsieve works by assigning values to different things it looks for. Many ISP SPAM detection methods work similarly. A message is scanned and each suspect piece is assigned a value (that can change as the app/service 'learns' from your input) and the total is then used to decide what to do with the message. (This is a very simplified explanation, of course) In effect, the app is doing the work of searching for similar rules and making adjustments for you. That's what you are paying for when you buy the app. And that's not a monthly bill! I'm sure there have been upgrades/updates for Spamsieve in the many years I've used it but it would probably compute be only pennies a month, if that much! Nor have I received any sales fee for recommending the app!

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on June 10, 2014, 09:37:43 AM

I have a "donotspam@..." address. Not because I think anyone would pay attention to it but for the same reason Paddy recommends getting and using as many addresses as possible.

Additionally, to hopefully track who sold (or provided) this addy to anyone else, I usually add the name of the company or site where I use it to register. Many sites allow you to sign in with either an email address OR a user name. If a user name is allowed, that's where I stick the site or company name; why give them your real name?

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on June 10, 2014, 10:38:26 AM

QUOTE(jcarter @ Jun 10 2014, 09:47 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually, Jane, it would be quite easy to change an email address you use for family and friends. Just email them all and tell them to stop using it and give them a new one to use instead. The conditions under which the existing one operates won't change with the new one - assuming you simply choose a new email address with that domain. You'll still be able to send the large files etc. It's far easier to send out an email to your friends and family than to go around to a bunch of sites you buy things from etc. to change your email address/subscriptions. You can keep the old address for a few weeks until you're sure everyone has both been notified AND aware. Besides - if these are family/friends, they no doubt have alternate methods of contacting you should they not start using the new addy as requested. If you choose that route, whatever you do, do NOT put an autoresponder on the old address. Sure - it may seem tempting, as a surefire way of letting people know your new address - but it also will tell every single one of the spammers the new address as well, entirely defeating the purpose of changing to a new address!

Spamsieve is good - but I'm of the opinion that it's a bit like applying a bandaid (a big and quite effective one) to a problem instead of getting at the root cause, which in this case is the fact that a particular email address has become spam-afflicted.

Also, is that email address anywhere on the jcdouglass site? I know it's not on the front page, but if you've put it ANYWHERE on any page, it's possible it's been searched by spambots.

And....if it's not there on your site, it is right here: https://sites.google.com/site/capecodnevilshute/members . Found it by Googling your email address. So, guess what - even if you're being careful, someone else is NOT. I have no idea when that site went up or who administers it, but they've done you all a great disservice by putting your email addresses out there for all to see.

And last, but not least and even (potentially) much more damaging, it's in this list here: http://www.emaildatalist.net/1/download-em...-8353/8353.html which is a scummy business operating out of Vietnam - and NO, I would not recommend trying to "remove" your address there, as I wouldn't trust this site at all; they're in the business of providing email addresses to spammers, so why would they actually remove your email address? More likely, they'll just put it on a few other lists! In other words, that email address is now officially TOAST. Get rid of it. You will never get rid of the spam for the foreseeable future. Forget trying to do battle via Spamsieve - this requires taking that email address out to the back forty and putting it out of its misery.

You should still tell the admin of the Nevil Shute site that he/she has done a terrible disservice to all the members - that page should be taken down immediately, though in all likelihood, it's too late and all those email address owners are now experiencing spam.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on June 10, 2014, 11:24:53 AM

I agree with the majority of your last <post (#6)>, especially about getting rid of the abused email address, removing any address in any of her sites and using a form for contacts (there are free copy and paste codes available, here's a <basic one>, that keeps your addy from being in the html).

But I respectfully disagree that using Spamsieve is a "battle".

I think that is just a bit of hyperbole? I cannot see any reason to not use it. While it wouldn't have prevented Jane's current problem (I certainly didn't intend to imply that), I still think it is much better than using Mail's rules for catching SPAM. Mail's rules are great for re-routing good messages. I add a new contact to a couple of my rules (a group of neighbors, classmates, etc.) every month or two. Spamsieve is great for handling unwanted messages, be they SPAM or just annoying senders. This is how I use these two methods. Others may not agree... at their own peril!

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on June 10, 2014, 12:28:06 PM

Thank you all for explaining how these both work.
I am really pleased at the "rules" in MacMail, it seems to work perfectly and catches all the spam, directs it right into the spam box. And doesn't mess with the legit mail either. I have 8 rules.

This is entirely new spam that comes into this particular email box, and is all totally unrelated to anything Ive ever bought. Never ever used this one for shopping, except for Dell, and I get one a week from them. Its primarily used for sending psd, jpg, mov, and other types of large files within the family. And some other forums and a few other things, not many.

For example, I just sent a video from the kayak yesterday from my iPhone to my computer at home using this address we are discussing.

Actually its not on any of my pages inside of either of my sites. I sometimes use my Gmail for that, but its never been spammed.

OMG, right on the Nevil Chute site! I haven't used that for years, as they wanted me to fly to England and Australia with them. We started to communicate by phone, so I had totally forgotten about the site.

I just Googled my stuff, sadly, there is a lot of info out there about my pictures and stuff. I had totally forgotten about using it on those other sites.
I did learn how to block Google from finding most of my pages, noindex, noarchive, nofollow, and that stuff in the meta name-"robots" head part of the sites.

Im going to read over all your info again, then see how many spams I get now. I called MacHighway and they ramped up their filters one more notch, and it seems to have cut down a lot so far. I only got one spam message today so far.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on June 10, 2014, 05:46:20 PM

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jun 10 2014, 12:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Methinks you might want to read what I wrote a little more carefully, Jim.

I wrote "Forget trying to do battle via Spamsieve..." - I wasn't saying that using Spamsieve was a battle, but that trying to combat this particular issue, where the email address in question has been thoroughly compromised, was a battle that was essentially unwinnable. Yes - you can filter out the spam, but you cannot stop it from appearing in the first place; that ship has sailed.

I'm sure it's a great product. I just don't get enough spam to warrant using it. (feet planted squarely on large hunk of wood)

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on June 10, 2014, 05:53:00 PM

QUOTE(jcarter @ Jun 10 2014, 01:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jane - my main point is that the jane@jcdoug.... email address is now on spammers email lists as per that link I provided. And it's in plain sight on the Nevil Shute site, so really, it will continue to get spammed, probably in ever-increasing amounts. Unless you get off that Nevil Shute site and somehow fall off the email spammers' lists, that address will always be a spam magnet. It's up to you, but I'd dump it so you don't have to worry about it.

As for the other links etc. on Google - I wouldn't worry about them. I only found them through knowing what to look for. The only thing I'd make sure of is that any photos you care about are watermarked and that if you're using Wordpress or any site plugins etc. that all are up to date and less vulnerable to hacking. (I did see that you'd messed around a bit with Wordpress somewhere along the line)

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on June 10, 2014, 06:25:31 PM

To Paddy: OK, I understand more better.

And we both agree about dumping that address. How and where it got collected is almost irrelevant. Please follow the advice on hiding it in your web site(s)!

QUOTE("Paddy")

it's hiding in plain sight on your site

How else can we put it?

"The horse is out of the barn".
"The milk is spilled".
"Just do it"!
"Git 'er done"!
"Bite the bullet"!
"Send the message"!
"As seen on TV"! wrong thread...

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on June 10, 2014, 06:48:20 PM

I guess I will have to get rid of it.

And to find out who I have to notify that Im taking it out. This is the part which scares me, as I dont know how to do it properly.

I got a viagra spam and that nails it, it will have to go.

Tho the amount of spam has dramatically been reduced from the notch that MacHighway took down.
Maybe I will ask them to knock it down one more notch, and if that does it, I will let it go for a couple more days.

I will work on this tomorrow,,,,thank you for the education about spam, its the first time this has happened to me.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on June 10, 2014, 07:00:25 PM

If you have been using a password manager, it should tell you if you registered anywhere with it. Your email app should tell you if you still have any messages sent from it or replied to it. As has been mentioned, you just need to tell your important friends and family that you'll be 'killing' it and they should use the new one you specify. Those you miss will contact you by other means, if they really need to get in touch. There are still postal services available in MA, correct? Most people have a phone of some kind, also. There are even other ways to contact you on the interweb (Twit, Faceblob, etc.) Your ~~worrying~~thinking about it doesn't solve the problem but your actions can.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on June 10, 2014, 10:00:13 PM

QUOTE(jcarter @ Jun 10 2014, 07:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

First off, go into Cpanel for your website and create a new email address. Don't forget to use a good strong password.

Test the new address to make sure it works - add it to Mail, etc. Send yourself email from your other email addresses and send email FROM the new email addresses to your other email addresses.

Then, send out an email to all your friends/family who typically use that email address to contact you asking them to stop using the old address and start using the new one. Then, make sure you've changed any subscriptions/etc. that you've used it for as well (ie: if you've used it here at TS, you'd want to change it to the new address.)

Meanwhile - move any email (both from the inbox and from the sent folder) that you want to retain from the old address to two new folders in the "On My Mac" section of Mail. You could call them "Old jane@jc... Inbox" and "Old jane@jc... Sent" or whatever you like. Delete anything you don't want to keep, of course.

Then, once you've waited a week or two and are fairly sure that your near and dear are using/aware of the new email address, go back into Cpanel and simply DELETE the old email address. Done. It no longer exists. Gone to meet its maker. Pushing up daisies. All email sent to that email address will now bounce.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on June 11, 2014, 05:28:03 AM

Thank you all!

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on June 12, 2014, 07:09:54 AM

Update,,,,,whatever MacHighway did, sure worked, its cut way way down on the spam. And I still get the messages that I want.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 07, 2014, 11:38:47 AM

Now I am getting more again, so Machighway cranked the level up to the highest setting. They also 'whitelisted' the addresses that I want to come thru.
I will see how that goes for a week, then if I start getting more spam again, I am going to take Paddy's advice and do the change. I have a nickname that my family knows, so I will just use nickname(at)jcdouglass.net.

I think I do remember the site that did this to me, I was looking for a new summer dress, and didnt find what I wanted on LLBean or the ones I usually shop at.
So I Googled for floral summer dresses, got a bunch of sites and went to all of them.
Then about 3 days afterwards, thats when the spam started.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on August 07, 2014, 12:43:40 PM

QUOTE(jcarter @ Aug 7 2014, 12:38 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Uh...Jane, unless you gave all those sites your email address, they can't spam you just because you visited their websites. So unless you did that, it's something else. As I noted previously, your email address is available in plain sight online, so all it takes is one spambot and one list that gets sold over and over again.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 07, 2014, 02:03:06 PM

I think that I do have it on some of my very very old picture pages too.
So I guess I better do what you say and create a new one with my nickname and get rid of the old jane one.
I will carefully go over your instructions.
Thank you

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on August 07, 2014, 02:38:11 PM

Why is your email address still in plain view?

There are dozens of free methods via a simple Google. Granted, bots have been developed to bypass most of the old, simple methods, OTOH, why leave the barn door open and complain about the horses walking out?!

Plain text is actually just publishing your address for all bots. It's an open and public invitation to "take my address and SPAM me"! You don't (hopefully!) hang the key to your front door beside that door, why place your email address in the html?

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 07, 2014, 03:26:01 PM

The people who have that Nevil Shute site dont communicate any more.
And it would take me days to go thru my old stuff and find the few that have it. Its not on many of mine.
Unless there is another way to quickly find which of ANY sites that my email is listed on?
If there is, let me know.

Odd that it was only this spring, that spam hit me, all these years there was no problem on any of my email addresses?

I probably should follow Paddy's excellent instructions and change it to my nickname.
That would take care of it.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on August 07, 2014, 05:39:02 PM

I'm confused. Are you saying you don't have the html files for all and any of your sites on your local drives? That's where you edit them. With whatever software you used or now have, even TextEdit (just be sure to "Save as..." plain text and have ".html" as the suffix). You then upload them to where ever the server is and that changes what's seen on the web. No need to "communicate" with anyone about it, you have control over what files are on those servers (via FTP, at least).

If Paddy says your address is in "plain sight" it's because that's what she (or anyone else, including a 'bot') sees when looking at the source. She may tell you what site that is, but you certainly already know where all your sites are better than anyone here.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 07, 2014, 07:37:47 PM

Oh, yes I do that all the time, I know all that, I use TextWrangler.
I have all the html and css stuff, but sorting thru them all, egads that would take a long time. Its finding which ones thats the problem, it would only be my old pages.
Guess what I meant was how to find which ones had my email address in plain site on them.
Its hard to explain how many small pages that I have. I could do a screenshot? You would laugh.

I will take her advice and just create the new one.
Wish I knew how that happened, how they got my address and spammed it.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on August 07, 2014, 08:01:12 PM

QUOTE

Its finding which ones thats the problem

To find the files with your address in "plain text" I'd suggest entering your address in the 'Search' field of Text Wrangler, TextEdit, etc. That's pretty much what makes "Search" is handy. If you're really lucky, the "Search" function will also have a "Search and Replace" option. Amazing what programmers can do with ones and zeros...

BTW, adding/creating a new address won't change the fact that you get SPAM from an old one. If you simply change your "plain text" addy in your html, you'll simply get that one harvested, also. The problem is the "plain text" part.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on August 07, 2014, 09:05:22 PM

Jane's email address is on the Nevil Shute site, as I already mentioned, and it's also in this list here:

http://www.emaildatalist.net/1/download-em...-8353/8353.html

So...it's now completely useless, IMHO. Create a new email addy as I mentioned, let all your friends and family know, and then, after about a week, annihilate the old troublesome email address. Save the old emails you want to keep in folders (in the "on my Mac" section) in Mail, BTW before you do that.

Make sure you DO NOT use an auto-responder to tell people you've changed your email address, or you're likely to tell at least a few spammers that as well, which completely defeats the purpose of adopting a new email addy.

Jane, if you want to enable a method of contacting you via your websites, you should do so via a contact form which doesn't have your email address in it anywhere. I'd also suggest that you create another email address just for that contact form, as the people contacting you via that method aren't likely to be your near and dear. That way, should you respond to these people, you're still not showing them the email address you use for friends and family.

If you don't want to use a contact form, create a Gmail addy for this purpose. Gmail is great for this sort of thing. Utterly disposable if need be, and good spam filtering too.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on August 08, 2014, 10:47:34 AM

Here's a <perfectly easy to customize> "Contact Form" that uses PHP, which any descent web hosting service will have available to you. With your experience with html, you'll have no problem installing the code you download. Simple instructions include, of course.

Your actual address is only on the server, it is never seen in the html source document. It even includes a CAPTCHA function (this is the main 'bot' blocker). There will be a link to the developer but for $9 you get a license allowing you to remove that. I paid the guy $15 to add a couple of things and I still include a link to his site. He's very helpful, fast and friendly to amateurs!

This method won't stop "children" from sending you an email but you are probably already applying rules to your friends and family to easily find 'good messages'. Any email address you want can be used and you can always change that. Here's a <link to my Contact Form>, highly modified with CSS, of course.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 08, 2014, 12:02:16 PM

Never used an auto-responder, so thats OK.
And will never use a contact form on my sites any more. Was leery of that anyway.
Will strip that part of code out of my old ones. And upload the corrected html.

Actually the prime use of that addy is to upload pix from my iPhone on the fly, to my Mac so that I can PS them later on. Then I delete from the iPhone.
And family and friends. Ive already warned them that they should use my other family addy.

I do use my Gmail too, but maybe I will start using it more.

Coming up with zero on the searches, thats good.
The Nevil Shute one and the emaildatalist seem to be the only ones I can find at the moment. I will keep digging.

I am going to do this very soon,,,,,, And thank you for helping me thru this, its the first time Ive gotten into a spam mess. I sure thought it was one of those summer dress sites with ads on their page, thinking I clicked on an ad with a picture of a summer dress. And perhaps communicated with them asking about color or size or whatever.

QUOTE
"So...it's now completely useless, IMHO. Create a new email addy as I mentioned, let all your friends and family know, and then, after about a week, annihilate the old troublesome email address. Save the old emails you want to keep in folders (in the "on my Mac" section) in Mail, BTW before you do that."

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: kimmer on August 08, 2014, 02:28:17 PM

QUOTE(Paddy @ Jun 10 2014, 08:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And last, but not least and even (potentially) much more damaging, it's in this list here: http://www.emaildatalist.net/1/download-em...-8353/8353.html which is a scummy business operating out of Vietnam - and NO, I would not recommend trying to "remove" your address there, as I wouldn't trust this site at all; they're in the business of providing email addresses to spammers, so why would they actually remove your email address? More likely, they'll just put it on a few other lists! In other words, that email address is now officially TOAST. Get rid of it. You will never get rid of the spam for the foreseeable future. Forget trying to do battle via Spamsieve - this requires taking that email address out to the back forty and putting it out of its misery.

Just out of curiosity, how does one determine if their email address is on this charming site? I started loading list after list and after 20 minutes, I couldn't take any more -- but there were still plenty of lists to go!

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on August 08, 2014, 02:37:33 PM

QUOTE

And will never use a contact form on my sites any more. Was leery of that anyway.

Huh!

What happened? What type form did you use? Enquiring minds...

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 08, 2014, 03:02:36 PM

I dont remember, it was part of a class.
But now that I think about it, it was a while before I had the jcdouglass one.
So the contact form couldn't be the problem. Glad you got me thinking about that source.

And I had a button on some of my pages that said, 'click to send me a message' but those were really old ones too, with different email, not this one.

This is a mystery, I am wondering if it was the Nevil Shute site, or the search for summer dresses? Or something else.

But I think I will take Paddys advice and can that one and create another addy.
First giving Machighway another chance, they said they would crank their filters up to the top, but it would take a couple of days to work.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on August 08, 2014, 05:49:58 PM

Jane, it was NOT the search for the summer dresses. Nobody can just grab your email address when you do a web search. All that can be seen on the other end is your IP address - not your email address. YOUR email address is available (and has been for years) on the Nevil Shute site, and it has been picked up by spam bots and is now listed on that other email list download site I linked to. It's no doubt also on some lists that get bought/sold/traded by spammers.

Kimmer, simply Google your own email address - if it shows up on that site in the searches, you'll have the page it's on, and from there you can search the actual page using Safari.

My primary email address is nowhere to be found when I Google. (GOOD!!) My secondary ones show up here and there because they've been used for domain registrations which aren't private. No biggie - they're GMail addresses and the spam filtering works very well.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 08, 2014, 08:22:11 PM

Its totally out there everywhere,
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari...-8&oe=UTF-8

this is just from Google a moment ago.
Machighway, TS, everything I ever had used that email address on.
So there is absolutely no way to narrow down and find out out where/who got it, and how the spammers got it.
But the Nevil Shute one is one blatant culprit.

So guess I better toss this one in the trash and get a new one. Take your advice very soon.

Probably will switch to my Gmail, or my old earthlink one which never gets compromised and its my mostly used email.
Also have some others which have never been grabbed either. Just this particular one.

These spammers sure make a mess of things, too bad we cant ***** them.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on August 08, 2014, 10:48:25 PM

I don't even know who/what "Nevil" something is but it's not the cause of your email address being harvested. It makes absolutely no difference where you put/host your HTML, if you include your address in that file, it can be harvested. That's exactly what the 'bots' built to look/search for. Anyone, including you, can look at the HTML file of any site. I'm sure you've done that yourself. It's super simple. Whatever you put in your HTML is simply text; anyone can copy that text and paste it into another document. That's exactly what a bot does. A 'bot' is simply a small program that looks at all the text files of any site. Remember, there's nothing magical about a file with an 'html' suffix, it is still just a plain text file. That's why we are saying not to put your address in your HTML as plain text. As long as you do that, your address will be harvested. Period.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 09, 2014, 06:11:33 AM

So that site is not the cause of it being harvested? Wont make any difference?

Yes, I know that html code is plain text, thats how I write it in TextEdit anyway.
And I know how to look at source of any page.
I hope that my new pages dont have any of my email stuff in them.

If youve never heard of Nevil Shute books, you should grab one, he wrote 'Town like Alice' and many more. We have all his books. They are very old, but worth reading.
Wish we lived close, I could lend mine to you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute
I just know that you would like his books.
My elderly aunt had met him ages ago, and my collection of his books were given to me by her just before she passed away.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Xairbusdriver on August 09, 2014, 09:16:20 AM

QUOTE

I hope that my new pages dont have any of my email stuff in them.

how do you think anything gets put in your HTML? You are the one writing it.

Saying you "hope" your address doesn't get put into your text is like saying you hope the mailman doesn't take the letter you put in the mailbox. If you don't want your addy to be harvested in your HTML! then don't put it in there as text. Simple.

That's the whole point of us telling you your addy is in your HTML as plain text.

BTW, "plain text" simply means there is no proprietary formatting in the document like what Word or even RTF from TextEdit would have. Absolutely all a browser uses is plain text. It may tell the browser to get something from the server that is javascript or PHP or Flash or audio or almost anything else but the source (what you can see with 'View source or some other command) is just simple, plain text. So is CSS. So is javascript. So is PHP. And, unfortunately, in your site, so is your email address.

Don't do that.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 09, 2014, 10:13:41 AM

Its not that I dont know what is in my stuff, its just that I have so many old ones, that I cant remember what is in them. It would take me a ton of time to do this, and I really really dont want to bother.
Too much fun stuff going on this summer, to delve into such a time consuming project.
So I will probably just follow Paddy's instructions and go with a new addy.
Take a look at whats in here from the screenshot, its about 170 separate pages.

I just looked at some of the old puppy picture pages, yea there are tons of them, and all the email info in them is to my gmail address and no problem with it, so far.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: Paddy on August 09, 2014, 11:34:54 AM

QUOTE(jcarter @ Aug 9 2014, 11:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ok - let's clarify a few things. When you did that Google search, Jane, it pulled up a number of hits, but if you look at the results a bit more closely, you'll see that almost all of them have your web site address (the jcdouglass.net part) in them, but NOT your email address. The instances of your email address being out there clearly visible are relatively rare; the Nevil Shute site, the capecode site (which I'd forgotten about) and that email list site. Any one of those could be the source of the issue with the spam. All it takes is one bot, putting you on one well-circulated list...which likely results in it getting on more lists...and you start getting spam. Sometimes you can't tell where it's coming from. Sometimes you sign up for something/into a trusted site and they aren't actually quite so trustworthy after all and/or an employee sells the info on the side. You cannot always track things down. And in the end, it's actually not going to help anything as you can't stop the spammers on that address.

All you can do really is make sure that you're careful going forward with the new address, and get another new address that you use just for the less-trusted sites etc. I do get the odd bit of spam on my primary address - a couple a week at the very most. I have absolutely no idea where they came from, as I never use that email addy anywhere that I'd be suspicious about. It's not an issue though - it's hardly the flood you're experiencing.

Any time you put your email address online anywhere in either the text that is displayed, or in the HTML (a link) the spam bots can get it. There are rare ones that apparently will decode the ASCII code for the "@" too, according to what I've read, though I've yet to have that happen in real life on the few sites I still have up that use that masking tool. For the most part, spambots are lazy (or the coders are) and they just look for the "@" in the code and the displayed text, because they do just fine gathering lots of working email addresses that way. That is why you should use a contact form that doesn't contain the email address. There are lots of them out there and you don't have to pay for one that works. See: http://ftutorials.com/responsive-html5-and-php-contact-form/ for instance.

Also be aware that spammers will send spam to commonly used email addresses at domains whether those addresses exist or not; "info@yourdomain.com", "webmaster@..." - you get the picture. It's a scattershot approach which probably isn't terribly effective, but they still use it.

Title: Spam took over one of my email addresses
Post by: jcarter on August 09, 2014, 12:05:00 PM

Hi Paddy,
Thank you for explaining this so well, its all a mystery to me!
Now I understand it a bit better.

Except for the few courses in web stuff that Ive taken, Im mostly self-taught, thats why there are HUGE gaps in my knowledge, and thank god for TS, you all sure have filled in some of my gaps, and I dont do anything with my computers without consulting you all first! I have learned so much here!

I too have a primary Earthlink addy which I shop with, but I usually stick w. Amazon, LLBean, and the ones like this which I trust......(no more summer dress links!)
I dont plan to use a contact form, but I am saving that link, as I took a beginners course in HTML5/CSS3 last fall, and hope to take the next level up this winter.
So if I need a contact form, or if the instructor calls for one for us to learn, I can use it.

I notice that my Gmail address gets only a couple of spams a day, and my Earthlink one gets almost no spam. And my other one which is my other web site address, gets zero spam. Same with my several Mac ones, almost zero.

This family one sure got compromised.
Guess Ive been very lucky over the years.