[Love Calm Quiet]

About half the spam I get that mail (since some time last year) does *not* learn to filter out has CC to several other people who are @mac.com. Always a different collection of addresses. Always (as much as I've studied them) *no* addressees (either in To: or Cc who have addresses with other ISPs.

I don't know these mac.com fellow-victims. In fact I only know a few mac.com people in my life (excluding "knowing" you folks via MacNN).

I conclude, therefore, these *cannot* be email addresses harvested in the usual way (i.e., from PC users' Outlook address books). [Unless, I suppose they harvest them and then bunch together spam to people of the same ISP.]

This has been going on since some time in 2005. I can deal with it even though Mail doesn't seem to be learning to filter these out these 5/day even after months of my manually "Junk"ing them.

BUT, the nagging questions for me are:
"From where are these people harvesting mac.com addresses? Apple itself? MacNN forums?"
"Are other MacNN folks @mac.com also getting spam that CCs several other unknown people @mac.com?

I don't have my address available at MacNN. I'm not active at any other forums, newsgroups, etc. I can't think what other mac-centric outfits I'm registered with and given my mac.com address (OK: versiontracker MacUpdate).

[andi*pandi]

the spammers have just got a script that spits out a bunch of names--maybe nobody has those as addresses. They're hoping to get lucky.

make a rule in Mail that puts anything without your name or email addy in the To field to the Junk box.

[piot]

I have similar probs with my ISP here in the UK.

Originally Posted by andi*pandi

make a rule in Mail that puts anything without your name or email addy in the To field to the Junk box.

How can you avoid junking a legitimate message when your are on the cc list?

[Diggory Laycock]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi

the spammers have just got a script that spits out a bunch of names--maybe nobody has those as addresses. They're hoping to get lucky.

make a rule in Mail that puts anything without your name or email addy in the To field to the Junk box.

I think you are wrong - I too have had many of these spam emails to my .mac address, and as you can see from my name, it's unlikely that they just guessed my name.

These spam emails often have several other mac.com addresses as recipients, mostly starting with 'd'.

[goofticket]

One thing I refuse to do is accept FWD and group mailings.
If someone wants to contact me, they can send an individual email.
As soon as I see a cc: FWD: in my inbox on Yahoo, it heads for the trash, after I reply that i won't accept group or FWD emails.
My friends understand and they now demand it too.
It has helped.

[nerd]

What does blocking FWDs really do to help? Either way the person is sending you email?

[Love Calm Quiet]

I, also, need to receive quite a few fwds & CC mailings. So that sort of rule is problematic.

MAIL WISHLIST: I wish that I could use diff rules in mail for diff accounts. Then I could have all business mailings (fwd, CC, included) go to just one acct that did *not* junk those.

DIGGORY: I tend to agree with you. There is NO way they got my bizarre last name (10 of us in U.S.) randomly. And the "names" of the other mac.com users are often creative/bizarre titles that I could imagine MacNNers might have.

I wish there were a way to post a bunch of for mac.com names here (without subjecting users to more spam) to see if any of you are on the list. If so I would really suspect something wonky w/MacNN.

Actually, I guess I *could* just list the acct name (w/o the @mac.com) of apparent victims to see any are known here. (I just hate to come even *close* to abusing people's privacy.)

[macsfromnowon]

I get these, too. From places like " goodie land . com"(a "prescription drug site) and "cyberdeal sexplorer.com" (which strangely offers Rolex instead of sex).

I don't know from where, but they've definitely unearthed a bunch of .mac accounts. ist: