Can somebody else use your domain name for emails?

[Frank Richards]

I have been getting about 40 daily "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender" messages in my inbox for over a week now. My email is "catch all" so I get emails no matter what is typed in. I don't care so much that I am getting these messages, I am just worried that someone is trying to make me look like I am sending SPAM by sending emails with a @pokerreviewusa.com extension.
Does anybody know if someone can use your domain name for their email address or is someone just trying to mess with me and make it look like they are doing it.



One of the messages (the email address that the message was bounced from has been removed)


Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:48 +0100 (CET)
From: "Mail Delivery System" <EMAIL address>Add to Address Book
Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender
To: ptj@pokerreviewusa.com
This is the Postfix program at host poczta2.3cube.pl.
I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to
</P>If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.
The Postfix program
<apaluch@opera.wroclaw.pl>: unknown user: "apaluch@opera.wroclaw.pl"
Message/delivery-status
Reporting-MTA: dns; poczta2.3cube.pl
X-Postfix-Queue-ID: 566F65C7FF
X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; ptj@pokerreviewusa.com
Arrival-Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:48 +0100 (CET)
Final-Recipient: rfc822; apaluch@opera.wroclaw.pl
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; unknown user: "apaluch@opera.wroclaw.pl"
From: "Potts" <ptj@pokerreviewusa.com>
To: anna.paluch@opera.wroclaw.pl
Subject: subtitles tar
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:57:08 +0200
HTML Attachment [ Scan and Save to the Computer | Save to Yahoo! Canada Briefcase ]

Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system? A launch condition in your application's setup checks whether. It's almost as if Ms.
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In Windows Vista and Windows Server code-named "Longhorn," . I mean, if you can marry somebody of the same sex, can you marry a third person of the same sex?
We claim to support full equality for everyone. Xml team, wrote "What's New in System.
For those who don't really follow sports, baseball has a state for literally everything.

[matted]

Yes, they can and my hosting comapny has said there is nothing they can do. Even some obscure knitting website I maintain for a friend has it happen.

[Doolally]

I've been getting a lot of these recently as well. I can't see how anything could be done about it. Can someone prove me wrong?

[Ziggy]

I have a non-related website where I started getting a TON of these undelivered emails.

My host told me that someone was using a phishing technique and it would be wise of me to not use the "catch all" email function. So I removed "catch all" and the emails stopped.

However, that also means if someone mis-types your address you might miss something, but the emails were just flooding my inbox and my host was beginning to not like it as well.

[funboy]

my host allows me 20 "catch all" email names, once you have thought of 20 it doesnt leave a lot to be spammed with.
some of mine are
webmaster, info, mail, response, bet, cant remenmber the rest ....lol

[bb1web]

Hi all,

you know what amazes me is with all this technology .. nobody has come up with the simple ability to not allow an email to be sent if it doesn't have the correct "from" addy present.

its very frustrating. I get them all the time and its hard tellng how much money and lost patrons are atributed to this BS.

seriously ... how hard can it be to require the actual sending address be present .... and not substituted?

to me .... its like telepromoting. Nobody likes it ... nobody wants it. Yet it exists. How hard is it to require the sender / caller to be identified with a number which if necessary .... can be reported to proper authorities and have that acted upon?

I don't get it.

[Intertops]

Hi there,

maybe there is some technical misunderstanding. Every e-mail has an envelope and a From field. You can imagine that like a letter and on the envelope there is a return address (visible for the post man), if you open the envelope there is the letter in there with a letter head with an address as well. These addresses are normally the same but not necessarily.

So, now there is a thing called Address Verification, if you are interested, you may find more information here:
http://www.postfix.org/ADDRESS_VERIFICATION_README.html

With this verification it is checked if the address on the envelope is valid. You can imagine that like the post man is checking every letter if the address printed on the envelope is valid and mail can be sent there.

I have used this technique about 2 or 3 years ago and it killed about 90% of all SPAM. Now, the senders of SPAM learned and improved their tools, now they are using addresses they find in the web, to not only send junk to, but also to write this as the sender.

Just imagine that again with the post man: The evil Spammer is puting his junk into an envelope, writing one address on the receipent side and another one on the sender side. If now the receipient is invalid, the other who has nothing to do with the just gets the message with a "Return to Sender" stamp.

[donnajyc]

Wow, that's a really nasty problem.. I've never even heard of it until now. I hope I never experience it, and am sorry for you guys that did. Thanks for the information. At least if it does start happening I'll have a clue what's going on...

[joeyl]

The only way i've found around it is to use gmail or something like that.

It has worked so far. I have a catch all set up for my newest domain as a test, and have received none of these damn things.

That does not mean to say someone cannot spoof emails from your url address extension, but it has not happened so far as yet.

[pgaming]

Email spam for myself is a none issue I just don't recieve any. I used to until I started taking the propper measures. Action speaks louder than words I beleive in this case. We can all explain email spam and do our small part in preventing it. I like cutting it off at its' source something very few do.

In every email spam properties there is always one part that is true.

greek39

[bb1web]

Hi again all,

I of course hate getting spam. I must get 1000s a day.

what bothers me most however is the thought that somebody else is getting mail that portrays itself to be coming from me.

of course ..... I have no way of knowing when this is happening. so its not like I am too worried about it .... but only for that reason.

THERE IS A WAY TO STOP THIS BS FROM HAPPENING. I'm no expert on the subject but I truly believe if it was truly desired ..... there'd be a way to stop it. this all falls on the email providers however and there's little we as website owners can do about it.

[pgaming]

The self-portrayal spam is the worst. Looking into the properties of the email and following through is enough to calm me down. Sometimes the temptation to opening them is hard to resist.

Here’s a tip if you are running an M$ OS check your host file.

Right click start >> explore >> c: windows >> system32 >> drivers >> ECT >> Hosts

Having them routed to an external drive helps as well.

Open the Host file with notepad and see what is in there. There should be absolutely nothing in the file any greater than 1kb. For some dubious malicious spam this is the common place where they set up shop.

If I happen to receive the occasional one I just delete them after grabbing the properties. Then I will spend the hour it takes to report and find out who’s doing it. From a practical standpoint, who would be willing to go through all this? This sort of attitude is what the spammer is counting on.

Just a thought, please don’t take this a gospel. I hate email spam with a passion. Getting thousands/day would most certainly drive me nuts if I am not already lol.

Greek39

[PokerTitan]

my host allows me 20 "catch all" email names, once you have thought of 20 it doesnt leave a lot to be spammed with.
some of mine are
webmaster, info, mail, response, bet, cant remenmber the rest ....lol

slow down...let me get a pen.





I'm kidding of course. but i bet Anna Pulach is delighted to have her email address in this discussion

[universal4]

I can and have in the past told horror stories about spam issues and I deal with a lot of spam on a daily basis. I have had to turn off email accounts in the past because they were getting over 6000 spams a day.

Funboy, you might have a slight misunderstanding of what a catchall does. A true catchall will forward ALL email to a single email account that has no where else to go. So having 1, 20 or 100 is not logical....the catchall gets all mail not address to the 20 real email accounts you have.

If anyone happens to edit their host file, there is one entry in there that must always remain. 127.0.0.1 localhost

There are a number of technologies on the burner for helping to control spam, and I think whatever one day becomes a standard will have to involve dns. The problem with most options in use and being tested, there are just as many ways around the fix.

Rick
Universal4