I know y'all are tired of me, but...

CharlesL

PFG, Picture Framing God
In Memorium
Rest In Peace


Gone but not forgotten
Joined
Apr 9, 2001
Posts
7,255
Loc
Clayton, NC
I recieved this 'returned email' today, that I never sent, never even SAW, and don't know who the addressee is. Sorry, but it's a little lengthly: (italics are mine)

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

tim_greene@governorsclub.com
This message has been rejected because it has
a potentially executable attachment "your_details.pif"
This form of attachment has been used by
recent viruses or other malware.
If you meant to send this file then please
package it up as a zip file and resend it.

------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------

Return-path: <charles_lowry_68@msn.com>
Received: from [66.26.229.193] (helo=BETTY)
by jake.sitecontrol247.com with esmtp (Exim 4.20)
id 19tBkU-0007kI-OE
for tim_greene@governorsclub.com; Sat, 30 Aug 2003 15:51:05 -0400
From: <charles_lowry_68@msn.com>
To: <tim_greene@governorsclub.com>
Subject: Re: That movie
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 15:51:08 --0400
X-MailScanner: Found to be clean
Importance: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="_NextPart_000_00934C5F"
Message-Id: <E19tBkU-0007kI-OE@jake.sitecontrol247.com>

This is a multipart message in MIME format

--_NextPart_000_00934C5F
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

See the attached file for details
--_NextPart_000_00934C5F
Content-Type: application/octet-stream;
name="your_details.pif"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="your_details.pif"

TVqQAAMAAAAEAAAA//8AALgAAAAAAAAAQAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA



Then followed, literally, several pages of numbers, letters and symbols like the line and a half I included in the paste.
I have spent the last week and a half downloading everything that's supposed to prevent worms, viruses, etc, and also downloaded everything MSN has on their site.
It sure looks like my computer has, at least a bad cold, if not a virus!

Anybody got any ideas?
'

[ 08-31-2003, 12:49 AM: Message edited by: CharlesL ]
 
Solaris?

Guess it could be flash backs.
 
Charles I hope you didn't open this without scanning it for viruses first! It probably had nothing to do with your computer in the first place. There are several viruses out there, most notably Klez and the new one SoBig that hide where they are coming from by using email addresses they find on the host computer. Then when someone gets them, they think it is from you. What you got sounds like an automated message from an internet service telling you they detected a message from your email address with possibly infected code. Problem is, it wasn't from you at all, it was from an infected computer that has your email address on it.

If you did open it, you better run a full virus scan. You might also want to go to Symantec and run their more detailed scan. Never open anything you can't identify or be sure of and have your email scanned for viruses!
 
I've gotten a whole chunk of those over the past couple of weeks. This particular one doesn't need to be downloaded, it is part of what is sent back.

Apparently somebody's (many somebodies') software rejected all these e-mails and sent them back to the "stolen" e-mail address.

I noticed that most of the one's returned to me had some sort of "arty" address. (art this, or needlework that, etc) I had never heard of, or known any of these people, so the addresses were not "harvested" from my address book.

(I did however think about going through all of them and saving the addresses for future mailings of my own. I often do this with mass "forwards" that come in. But I didn't with the "arty" ones. Should have, I guess...)

Betty
 
Charles, I've been getting 3-4 of those, or similar, each day for about a week. I'm running full system virus scans daily and all my signatures are up-to-date, as well as the Microsoft updates.

At first, I was greatly concerned. Then my daughter explained the facts of life to me.

I could have her contact you directly if you like. :D
 
I get dozens of these daily, myself.

In my case, someone is using my address to send the virus to other people. They are "spoofing" the from field with my address, so the recipient thinks it originated from me. I believe this may be the case for you as well.

One of the recipients rejected your email (account may have expired, or virus scanner may have stopped it), so the "undeliverable reply" (bounced) mail is coming back to your address - since it was placed in the FROM: field of the original message.

I believe this is what you are experiencing, and if so it is no fault of your own.

Mike
 
There really is a Governor's Club in Chapel Hill. Did you look up Tim Greene in the phone book? Not that it would help, but it would be interesting to see if he exists in a neighboring community.
 
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