#42175: DeafScribe — 09/29  at  03:51 PM
If you ever identify the perp, can we please please please drop him into a vat of giant squid?

#42182: Moses — 09/29  at  04:38 PM
Hey, I though I was the only one having this problem. Yowling's email address has been similarly hijacked.

Squids are too good for this person. I say we send him to Bush's Oval Office to listen to our preznit's folksy tales until he goes completely bonkers.

#42185: Duane Smith — 09/29  at  04:50 PM
I get the same stuff at the email site that I run out of one of my bedrooms. I have tried to track it down but the folks that do this keep moving around. Make sure they are not relaying off your sendmail or SMTP server.

#42189: Aaron M — 09/29  at  06:19 PM
As an email admin, this is the kind of crap I have to deal with every day, and why I lean toward the death penalty for spammers.

On the other hand, I'm pleased to see that you have the good taste to read Narbonic.

#42200: Orac — 09/29  at  08:16 PM
Damn phishers. Spammers and phishers are the lowest form of Internet scum.

#42207: — 09/29  at  09:39 PM
Regrettably, I don't think you can charaterize the phishers as idiots. Just about any other derogatory remark will do, but they're not stupid. Sending out millions of emails is approximately free, and even though the hit rate is very poor, they have no reason to care; the returns are sufficient (though a very small proportion) that they don't need to worry at all about discriminating the targets.

Add to that, it seems that the relevant authorities aren't that interested in fixing the problem.

I get quite a few cleverly constructed phishing emails, and decided one time that I would see if the reporting mechanisms available would work. I analyzed the email source, and in particular its origins and the destination of the disguised links. Turned out to be a consumer DSL account at a large ISP in Taiwan, of which I was able to get the subscriber ID. Being international obviously makes it tricky, but nothing that should be beyond law enforcement when the perpertrator is in a US-friendly country and easily identifiable.

I send all the information to the FBI via their website, through a "tip reporting" system that allows one to submit tips related to computer-oriented crime. In my message to them, I asked if they could let me know which one of the following I should do:

a) This is useful and relevant information and I should keep sending it as I see it.
b) This is relevant, but they are already swamped with such reports and don't need such additional information or
c) This isn't the right agency to which this should be reported, in which case please tell me to whom I should report it

response? Nothing. I have no idea what happened, but I have to presume that nobody looked at it.

#42210: Alon Levy — 09/30  at  01:12 AM
There's no way to read Narbonic without paying, is there?

About phishers, they're not stupid, but anyone who believes them is. It's common sense that bloggers won't ask you for your credit card number out of the blue.

#42219: — 09/30  at  05:03 AM
The phishers attacked my domain a couple of months ago. I blame (former) visibility of email addresses on Panda's Thumb for that. The timing was just too suspicious. It was the only place I'd just put the address. Of course all the variously named and entitled emails came to me and I knew I hadn't (couldn't have!) sent them.

I reported them to SpamCop (ie every single mail - and it took me just about every minute of my day to keep up!). I don't know whether it really worked though, or if they just gave up after a couple of days anyway.

http://www.spamcop.net/

#42244: Heliologue — 09/30  at  08:29 AM
I've had similar things happen to me, except for it was caused by a virus. One of my email users had a (dumb) friend who got a a virus that looked at addresses in the address book (), and then sent emails to that address using fabricated addresses like . I say it was a virus because my server removed a very obvious payload.

#42298: — 09/30  at  01:54 PM
There's no way to read Narbonic without paying, is there?
Once a year or so she opens up the complete archives for about a week, for free. But, if there is anything in this world that's more worth the $3 a month, I'd like to know about it. Shaenon Garrity is a god.