[D'Espice]

Hi,

I just got an email and I'm not quite sure whether it's spam or not. It might be spam since the return address ends in numbers and it's all caps. It might also not be spam since I did a google search for the email address and found some entries. It's an Yahoo email address.

I also took a look at the email header, and all the servers that this email went through are actually Yahoo servers. The text of the email reads:

MY NAME IS -deleted-
I LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES
MY PARENTS ARE FROM PIOTRKOW TRYBUNALSKI
-deleted- IS MY FATHER.

I WOULD APPRECIATE A REPLY.

THANK YOU , KAREN

I also did a search for that name but couldn't find anything. But the thing is, that city really does exist and it's near Warsaw. And I also got family in Warsaw.... so right now I'm not sure whether this is spam or not. I think it is but just to make sure, did any of you guys get this or similar messages? I also did a google search for that subject and found some stuff but nothing that resembled this email even remotely.


Here's the header of that mail:

From -deleted- Sat Dec 4 11:20:33 2004
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Delivery-Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 05:51:43 +0100
Received: from 206.190.38.196 (helo=web51504.mail.yahoo.com)
by mx-b.kundenserver.de. with ESMTP (Nemesis),
id 0MKt1w-1CaRtX0Cq7-0000ar; Sat, 04 Dec 2004 05:51:43 +0100
Received: (qmail 88319 invoked by uid 60001); 4 Dec 2004 04:51:42 -0000
Comment: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws;
s=s1024; d=yahoo.com;
b=vEPd1sYwYV6EapCRiEFPyWXajKk2GAyvEdx8LaH70shOTZIv owcRumjKBLMmAM5ot2ltfvobq2IqWrnEuAONXETDcAj1NI2Sd2 FFtWk4zq2INROyFYT48fCaQqWsUvrBAzVIyDH6Hd/jxrgtCAuatmDBCI2TYowYfJbWe3OdDiA= ;
Message-ID: <[email protected] m>
Received: from [24.7.13.31] by web51504.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:51:42 PST
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 20:51:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Karoon <[email protected]>
Subject: ARE WE RELATED?
To: -deleted-
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Envelope-To: -deleted-
X-SpamScore: 1.549
tests= FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS SUBJ_ALL_CAPS

Both the To and Envelope-To are the same btw, just deleted my email address from there

[Eriamjh]

My guess is yes.

[dcmacdaddy]

Create a new Yahoo or Hotmail account and reply to this e-mail form that account. If it is spam, you never have to use that account again. If no,t once you verfy the nature of the person's interest you can resume contact with them using your regular account.

[MacGorilla]

I got the same thing. I deleted it as spam,

[Oisín]

Halfway off-topic: I got a mail today, which was probably spam, but the oddest spam mail I've ever got. It was from some Chinese Yahoo! account ([email protected]), and it was entitled "Correction".

The text in the mail was simply, "Please read the document". That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. No attachments, no nothing. Obviously, I deleted it as spam, but still... it did seem rather pointless, seeing as how it wasn't really spamming anything.

Meh, just sharing...

[Ghoser777]

That was probably a virus masked as a word document.

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
I got the same thing. I deleted it as spam,

Thanks, that answers my question. If you (or anybody else) received that exact same email then it's gotta be spam.
What city did they use in your mail?

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by Ois�n:
Halfway off-topic: I got a mail today, which was probably spam, but the oddest spam mail I've ever got. It was from some Chinese Yahoo! account ([email protected]), and it was entitled "Correction".

The text in the mail was simply, "Please read the document". That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. No attachments, no nothing. Obviously, I deleted it as spam, but still... it did seem rather pointless, seeing as how it wasn't really spamming anything.

Meh, just sharing...

Yeah, that's some kind of virus/worm/trojan. I get these quite often too, like at least thrice per day. Sometimes, when new viruses/worms/trojans spread across the windows world, I get like 100 of these a day

[MacGorilla]

Mine was from city in Russia...too bad I'm Welsh.

[Oisín]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
Yeah, that's some kind of virus/worm/trojan. I get these quite often too, like at least thrice per day. Sometimes, when new viruses/worms/trojans spread across the windows world, I get like 100 of these a day

You mean a virus/worm/trojan that turns random accounts into dummy spammers and send the same mail out from all of them? Or that there was somehow a virus/worm/trojan in the mail? 'Cause I don't think there can have been; I received this mail at an address where I use the webmail interface, and only plain text works there, no HTML or code of any kind is accepted (parsed, that is).

[effgee]

Originally posted by Ois�n:
You mean a virus/worm/trojan that turns random accounts into dummy spammers and send the same mail out from all of them? Or that there was somehow a virus/worm/trojan in the mail? 'Cause I don't think there can have been; I received this mail at an address where I use the webmail interface, and only plain text works there, no HTML or code of any kind is accepted (parsed, that is).

Lots of ISP's/email providers filter attachments directly on the incoming mail server - in that case, regardless of how you access your mail (email client/web interface), you would have never seen the attachment.

[Oisín]

Originally posted by effgee:
Lots of ISP's/email providers filter attachments directly on the incoming mail server - in that case, regardless of how you access your mail (email client/web interface), you would have never seen the attachment.

Not mine. It's a mail account on my own domain, and there's no spam filtering whatsoever.

[Xeo]

If it's spam then the yahoo address is a spoofed address and replying will do no harm. You might as well reply and see if the person on the other end is real or not.

[effgee]

Originally posted by Ois�n:
Not mine. It's a mail account on my own domain, and there's no spam filtering whatsoever in the webmail interface of their web services.

Heh - I am of course not saying that this is what happened in your case - but having your own domain does not mean your mail isn't filtered before it gets to you.

I own three domains (each with its "own" mailserver address - "mail.domain.com" - virtual mail servers, btw) and on two of those, blatantly obvious viruses, trojans etc. are always filtered out before they get to "my" mail server. To make a long story short - unless you have specific info from your ISP/hosting provider or tried it yourself, there's really no way of knowing whether or not your mail is "pre-filtered"

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by Xeo:
If it's spam then the yahoo address is a spoofed address and replying will do no harm. You might as well reply and see if the person on the other end is real or not.

I highly doubt that the person is real since MacGorilla received that very same mail with a city in Russia instead of Poland... it's probably just some kind of new personalized spam.

@MacGorilla: Do you by any chance have a name that sounds somehow Polish/Russian/Czech/etc.? Mine's Silesean, just curious.

[Oisín]

Originally posted by effgee:
Heh - I am of course not saying that this is what happened in your case - but having your own domain does not mean your mail isn't filtered before it gets to you.

I own three domains (each with its "own" mailserver address - "mail.domain.com" - virtual mail servers, btw) and on two of those, blatantly obvious viruses, trojans etc. are always filtered out before they get to "my" mail server. To make a long story short - unless you have specific info from your ISP/hosting provider or tried it yourself, there's really no way of knowing whether or not your mail is "pre-filtered"

Hrm, my previous post was a little strange... I sort of tried the sentence ten times before finishing it, and I think I ended up leaving out more than I included, making it less than understandable... :S

What I meant to say instead of "...and there's no spam filtering whatsoever" is that it says on the host's homepage that they do not scan any incoming or outgoing mail for viruses, and that use of the webmail is strictly at one's own responsibility, since it's not possible to check for viruses (as opposed to using a mail application where you can specify your own rules, etc. etc.).

There, I think it should be a little easier to get my drift without being a global mind-reader now

(And now [or in a minute], off to bed. Got an HSK test in seven and a half hours...... sh*t!!!)

[Xeo]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
I highly doubt that the person is real since MacGorilla received that very same mail with a city in Russia instead of Poland... it's probably just some kind of new personalized spam.

@MacGorilla: Do you by any chance have a name that sounds somehow Polish/Russian/Czech/etc.? Mine's Silesean, just curious.

The e-mail contains no links to places or images? The path it took went through Yahoo! servers? I wouldn't discount it so easily. Your question is valid and responding to a Yahoo! account won't hurt you in any way.

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by Xeo:
The e-mail contains no links to places or images? The path it took went through Yahoo! servers? I wouldn't discount it so easily. Your question is valid and responding to a Yahoo! account won't hurt you in any way.

Nope, no hidden links or images, neither visible nor hidden. Just plain text.

[olePigeon]

It's just marketing. It's interesting just enough that you might reply. When you do, your email is added to a list and shipped off to as many marketing firms as possible.

That's why you never click the "remove from list" link in SPAM, because it only confirms your email as legitimate.

[Xeo]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
It's just marketing. It's interesting just enough that you might reply. When you do, your email is added to a list and shipped off to as many marketing firms as possible.

That's why you never click the "remove from list" link in SPAM, because it only confirms your email as legitimate.

While it is true you shouldn't click a remove link, I think replying to a Yahoo! account is a poor way for a spammer to collect addresses.

Man, if replying to a simple e-mail is so scary then just set up a hotmail account and use that. Then abandon it if you get no replies.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
It might be spam since the return address ends in numbers
From: Karoon <[email protected]>

I like !

-t

[Xeo]

Originally posted by turtle777:
I like !

-t

You spammer, you.

That brings up a good point. 777 is not a random 3-digit number. It's quite unrandom, actually.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Xeo:
That brings up a good point. 777 is not a random 3-digit number. It's quite unrandom, actually.

Hm, I just rolled my 1000 sided die and that's what I got...

-t

[TheBadgerHunter]

There is another explanation... you're all related.

[MacGorilla]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
I highly doubt that the person is real since MacGorilla received that very same mail with a city in Russia instead of Poland... it's probably just some kind of new personalized spam.

@MacGorilla: Do you by any chance have a name that sounds somehow Polish/Russian/Czech/etc.? Mine's Silesean, just curious.

Yes, mine is Austrian. Even though I'm welsh, I'm also part german and part jewish,