Most of the crap posted to the newsgroups and the spam that is sent to or
email addresses is done by automation and replying to it only allows one to
blow off steam and not much else.

There are several people in the world using my name. And not all of them
are the ones running around in my head, either. There is
"Al Pickrel, Executive Vice President, Chief Title Officer" of the
California Land Title of Marin County California. I have known about this
Al for a long time. He can keep the name, I figure it belongs to him too.
I want his paycheck.



Is it possible there is more than one person on the internet with your name
posting to the same newsgroup you post to?



I have received spam with Reka's email name and address on it but I am sure
it is not Reka from this newsgroup sending it. The same spam software that
sticks my name in the 'to' field also sticks random email addresses into the
"from" and "return to" fields. I thought it was a hoot to see a name I
recognized on a piece of obvious spam in my spam trap. Ever buy that CD
sold in spam emails that promises to contain 22 million valid email
addresses? Obviously somebody has...



In my spam trap I also find bounced spam which gets sent to me rather than
to the real sender and complaints from people as far away as Russia who
think just because my email address appears in the from header and the
return address header of the spam they received that I must be the one who
sent it and so they curse at me for trying to sell them p0rn and V1agra and
promise to shut down my .com domain by reporting me to my ISP. I wish they
would rather than making an email threat. If they did they might learn what
this paragraphs and the one above it tries to explain.



A fake name and email address on the internet won't stop the real one from
being abused. It will just slow down the process.



Do a google search on how to read email headers in order to learn the
difference between fake entries and real ones. There is almost always a
real DNS number that traces back to the original computer buried somewhere
in the mess. (In Usenet articles there is almost always an ID that can
trace back to the original poster and his service provider) In my spam, no
matter who's email address is in the sender or return sender fields, most
often the originating DNS number comes from outside the ARIN sphere, usually
someplace in china or Korea but not always. It almost never comes from the
person who's email address is in the sender field.



Are you saying that somebody on the internet can access your computer and is
stealing info about you and then emailing you back pretending to be somebody
you know?



Do you have active and current firewall software installed on your computer
when it is connected to the internet? Do you have dial-up or a cable
connection? Firewall software is probably more important than antivirus
software and they are not the same thing. Firewall software usually provide
a log of incoming and outgoing traffic when you are connected and will let
you know which ports are being accessed and from where and allow you to
block what you don't like. Firewall software is probably the thing you are
missing. Get it, if only for your piece of mind.



Good luck.



"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
hlink.net...
All,

First, regarding a current post attributed to me (the old Free Martha BS),
I
had nothing to do with it.

Second, I put my own name into the Google search, and came up with a bunch
of posts via a message board in UK, Garden Banter. Just for the heck of
it,
I tried some other names, including my husband's. He's on line regularly,
though he doesn't do groups. His name came up, but it was clearly someone
else. I tried some names from this NG, and only one came up in the
context
of Garden Banter, even though lots of us are referenced on that board.
For
example, Ray - your name came up numerous times, but never attached to
Garden Banter.

Third, yesterday I received an email from someone unknown to me (I don't
download unknown mail - I read it off the ISP's server) who knew a load of
information about an event in my life that took place many years ago and
claimed to be a part of that event. I was suspicious, of course, but more
so now that I've seen that new post in this group. And, last time the
"Free
Martha" stuff came up, months ago, responses indicated that the post
originated with me.

We update our Norton antivirus at least weekly, the most recent time being
yesterday afternoon. I know I can add a "nospam" or something to my
response addie, but what good will that do if someone simply takes off the
junk?

I'm far from stupid, but the workings of hackers are beyond my expertise.
What am I missing here? I went back and reread the original Martha
thread,
but honestly I don't have the technical knowledge to fathom some of the
information that was posted (Mick posted a lot of info, but much was lost
on
me).

I certainly don't want to give up this group. What can I do to protect
myself, beyond what I already do? Plain English, please!

Thanks very, very much.

Diana