It's called "phishing"

[warrior1]

According to recent media reports, e-mail "phishing" attacks are on the increase. Phishing is the act of sending an e-mail falsely claiming to be an established business in an attempt to trick the reader into surrendering private information that can be used for identity theft. We want to share what we know and what you should do to protect yourself.

Commonly, the e-mail will say that the company needs to verify information about you to update your account or improve its Web site security.


***
Part of an email I got from a company I use.

Ok it's nice to know the name, but how do we stop it? I block, I report to my ISP, I've been told to change my email address. See what I need OE doesn't have. It's like junkmail file. If the email address isn't from a safe name It get's dumped in there unless I unblock the name. Groupwise has it, but I haven't found it on OE and Thunderbird doesn't seen to want to work on my machine for some damn reason.

[xultar]

1. I got one with a link to a fake site for SouthTrust bank that wanted ATM

and PIN numbers. Can you believe it???

[Skittles]

2. plenty of people would fall for it, xultar

believe it

[Safe as Milk]

3. Here's one way:

http://www.spamcop.com/

It's a free and paid service that send the sys admin of the domain name a request to take action against the originator of the email.

I used this resource extensively when I was using OE and an ISP with few filters of its own. Right now, I use an ISP with far better filtering and an email client that identifies and disposes of junk mail, and even has a "bounce" function. The result is that I get next to nothing but email that I expect.

[newyawker99]

8. Hi Safe as Milk!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[warrior1]

4. We are

being attacked every single day. Having Firefox is a Buddha send. It's stop the majority of the attacks. My last complaint is the damn spam mail. Does anyone know if OE has a way of stopping the spam, like a file it would get loaded where I could keep it out of incoming mail?

[mcscajun]

5. Your best bet is an ISP that blocks Known Spam before it ever

reaches your inbox, so it doesn't hog up your mailbox space, and sends "Suspect mail" -- stuff that might be spam or not, for you to review. Suspect mail is items not yet identified as spam, but does not originate from an address listed in your address book.

Earthlink does this; you can then miss about 95 percent of the spam directed at you, and either identify the rest as spam, or delete it, or reroute it to your inbox.

[yy4me]

6. Hotmail

My ISP provides good anti-spam protection but "Hotmail" the free e-mail I use for non-personal e-mail has the most cumbersome "Block Sender" procedure. I get lots of junk e-mail from senders that I do not want and in order to block, I have to have the senders e-mail address or domain. Well, if I go to "properties" to get the info, there is only a very long 2 line routing address. I am told this is blind and there is no way to stop this. Or how about the folded envelope, no subject, no sender that I get on OE that will not block! Any suggestions? I can go to one of the computer "help" sites but since this was started, thought I'd ask. Thanks

[Chewy_dKos]

7. Popfile

Popfile is a nice spam filter program that lies underneath OE It classifies things as junk or good mail based on what you have told it is junk in the past. It starts out a bit inaccurate, but after a week or so, it becomes incredibly accurate. What it will do, is append the word <SPAM> or <Personal> or whatever to the subject of the incoming email. At that point you can set up OE to sort your email in to a junk folder.

popfile.sourceforge.net

[newyawker99]

10. Hi Chewy_dKos!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[newyawker99]

9. Hi yy4me!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[yy4me]

11. Thanks for the welcome

Been here in the background since before the election, even donated to DU but, like many of us, I was paranoid about being "on line" at any political site. Same with participation in the DNC. As days go by, I get angrier and more frustrated at whats going on and at the same time, a little braver. My husband is now prone to saying, "Oh, OH, what did you just read on DU". He can tell what I have been doing by my mood. I am a senior, have voted since the early 60's and been a life long Democrat. I have never seen anything like todays government. Maybe I'm just getting old but it seems to me that we're on a sorry slope. I e-mail my Senators and Reps, the DNC, and every other politician I can think of and get the same old -"thanks for you comments, we get so many e-mails-----". Thanks to all at DU, keep up the great work. Speaking thereof, this old timer is looking for a job, guess what, retirement on Social Security doesn't work and yes, there is age discrimination.