Email Warning & Other Concerns

1. 0

   cosetteposted 14 years ago

   recently, a friend of mine emailed me about a problem he was having. he said that some of his email contacts had been receiving emails with spam links in them with his name in the 'From' section but he didn't send them. i had received a couple of them myself but ignored them because they were just empty and the links looked odd, so i didn't click them. i never click spam links in emails, even from someone i trust. not because i think that person is untrustworthy but because they might not know a link could be malicious. i consider any spam link in email suspicious. i'm glad he mentioned this in passing, because i was starting to wonder why he was sending me strange links...he WASN'T. someone else was, using his name.
   
   upon further invesigation, it turns out that this has been happening to a couple of my friends as well. i have received spam links in emails with friends' names in the subject title who did NOT send them. links to join them at LinkdIn; links to join them at some spa; links to join them at facebook; links to join them at other writing sites (not any of the ones discussed at Hubpages like shetoldme, etc).
   
   also, i fanned a new person last week and they sent me a link to their website and when i just opened the email without clicking the link, a tiny dialog flashed on my screen and my computer froze. i instantly disconnected my internet connection, cleared my cookies and temp files and rebooted.
   
   there is something malicious going on behind the scenes at HubPages...people are harvesting other people's email addresses and, once snagged, they begin spamming other hubbers using their name.
   
   know this:
   
   i hate spammers, as i have said many times on the forums, and would never spam anyone, even a friend.
   
   also, there is another thing some people do that i dislike - once i email them, they seem to think it is ok to send me chain mail with jokes in it in a mass group mailing, which i don't appreciate because now, people i never gave my email address to now have my email address, which is uncool. you should ask before you group someone's email address with others to respect their privacy. don't assume that person is chummy with your pals - they might not be.
   
   so, to protect myself, i will not be emailing people outside of HubPages that i am not close to. if anyone wants to email me, they will have to do it directly from HubPages, otherwise i will not open their email. if i receive an email from someone by way of HubPages, i will return the favour and answer them through their HubPages profile.
   
   i have had enough of this sort of tomfoolery where forum nastiness has to bleed out of HubPages and into my emails.
   
   i will communicate with only a very small handful of people through my Yahoo email account and not my HubPages one, so it is basically becoming inoperative. anyone who is not in my 'circle of trust' will not be receiving emails from me and i will not answer any they send to me.
   
   so be wary and ask your friends if they sent you a link instead of just assuming they did...they may not have. this is not to alarm anyone it is just to inform this community of things going on that may or may not affect them so they can protect themselves.
   
   thank you.

   replyreport
2. 0

   Website Examinerposted 14 years ago

   Thanks for the warning, Cosette. Spoofing is a big problem, and there is every reason to be cautious about links in emails no matter their apparent sender.

   replyreport
3. 0

   Brenda Durhamposted 14 years ago

   Over the last few months I've received spam links too, with a friend's name on them.  I asked the friend about 'em and she was upset also.  Turns out several other friends of hers were getting the fake e-mails I got.   They were advertisements for shoes and stuff like that!    It wasn't from Hub Pages though, 'cause she's not a Hubber as far as I know.    She had several e-mail addresses; she just stopped using the one that had spam tied to it.....

   replyreport
4. 83

   Rafiniposted 14 years ago

   I don't get much email, except the junk mail, lol, so...how can I tell if an email from someone I know has a spam link in it?
   
   Thanks.

   replyreport
   1. 80

      thisisoliposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Usually they are hosed on free websites.
      
      Cosette, I hope you have anti-virus!

      replyreport
5. 92

   Urbane Chaosposted 14 years ago

   That same problem has been around for a long time, and it's not necessarily anyone's fault.  Yahoo mail is notorious for that.  I would get emails from people I know all the time and they would always end up being a link to some random porn site or something like that.  I noticed the same thing in one of my Google accounts as well.
   
   It's some kind of virus out there, but so far, besides being a little annoying, it hasn't hurt anything.

   replyreport