As some of you know, I am in the internet business and measure internet traffic. I know that people can be traced by IP addresses, cookies, and caller records. But I'm perplexed about a particular situation - as are my co-workers.

Here is what has happened. I have a ficticious Yahoo e-mail address tied to a ficticious profile (name and address). With Yahoo, there is a Bulk Folder where Spam accumulates in so I never have to see it in my in-box. I usually just empty that Bulk Folder and never think anything about it. But the other day I decided to actually look at the message subject lines as I had been receiving the German Hate mail as a result to someone getting the Sober.Q virus (which replicates their contact lists) and I wanted to see if it was now being caught as Spam. What I found amazed me.

In the subject line of every piece of Spam was my name "Georgia". Thinking it could be referring to the state I opened some of the messages. Most of them were offers to re-finance, get a mortgage, or get a loan. But in the body of the messages was my full name and my address!

Now this ficticious e-mail address is in no way associated with any information about me. And I never submit it to any websites from my home computer. I do use it at work when I'm having to access certain news sites and have to have a "valid" e-mail address. But in that case I again use a fake name and street address.

So HOW did my personal info get associated with my ficticious e-mail address??

Can you try and get Yahoo to try and answer that ?

I also have an extra e-m with Yahoo and was receiving numerous "Don, we have this" etc or Don, you hansome hunk" , so I just put them into the spam column and now they are stopped...But it seems yours are different ?...
Interesting to really find out....

Well I guess I could call my Yahoo contacts (I do measure traffic for them). I just didn't want to bug them with a question not work related!

Are you receiving and sending mail to both your fictious account and your real account from the same computer? I'm wondering if you have cookies and/or other Temporary Internet Files in your system that a SPAM 'bot' could be accessing.

Is your system behind a firewall?

Have you reviewed the permissions in your firewall? Any suspicious program files there? If your unsure, it may be worth a call to your company's technical support staff for assistance.

Are you using any type of Spyware detection and/or blocker?

Dwight

Definately sounds like some spyware has made its way onto your computer. Spyware can pick up on things you have written on webpages or even things written in your email.

I remember during my time working on my Master's degree at Ohio University that I once got an email I couldn't believe. One of my professors was a very old man name Dr. Wetzel. I check my Hotmail one day and have "Important Message from Dr. Wetzel" in my inbox. I open it and it is PORN. I am sure I never typed his name in on the web on my computer. The only places I would have typed his name is in Word docs(Naturally, I had writen papers for this professor) and in email.

Moral of the story. Regularly check for spyware!

Derek

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Derek Taylor,