Possible Gov fishing on me?

[Son-of-Liberty]

Not sure what is going on.

I have received two emails in the past couple weeks that were both incorrectly addressed (not my email address but very similar) they were both different email addresses too. Somehow I still received them. They were not forwarded or anything like that either. This is on a hotmail account.

Neither of them are from people I know and both are very vague and cryptic. I set them aside in a folder two days ago and meant to print them as soon as I got my printer working on the new computer I am using. Went to get them today for printing and they are now gone. Which if I wasn't paranoid to begin with I am now.

The first one referenced pictures I have on "my page" and sounded like a female wanting to exchange pictures. I don't really have a page where I have pictures of myself, don't have Facebook or anything like that. Although I have posted pictures on GIM1 and a bodybuilding forum with just shorts on. At first I thought it was junk mail which I don't normally get. I did notice the incorrect address but didn't think too much of it until I received the second email.

The second one also was not correctly addressed to me. I can't remember all the details but it did include a poem about hating taxation and once again requested that I make contact with them. The name of the sender seemed made up but possibly Arabic. I lawfully do not pay income tax. This is what all of a sudden got my attention. Seems like someone is trying to get me to exchange information or start up a relationship of some sort. First they tried the sexual route and then through one of my passions.

Of course I am not going to fall for their shoddy attempts as my IQ is sadly (for them) over 75. ;D

I am in Canada so likely some Canadian intelligence agency. CSIS or division of the RCMP possibly.

If I receive any more of these emails I will be sure to print and save to a memory card.

Everybody be careful out there.

[Ash_Williams]

Most spam won't be addressed to you.

You can do the same thing by putting someone's address in as BCC:, and in the TO: field you just put some fake email address. They'll receive an email addressed to the fake address.

If you ever forward anything it's best to put everyone in as BCC and yourself as TO or it becomes more likely spammers will get the list of all your buddies' addresses.

[Son-of-Liberty]

The address was similar to mine which was weird. Did not seem to be BCC as the only address I could find in the email were the 1 address that was almost but not the same as mine. Also I can't account for the erasing of the emails.

[Gaillo]

...I set them aside in a folder two days ago and meant to print them as soon as I got my printer working on the new computer I am using. Went to get them today for printing and they are now gone. Which if I wasn't paranoid to begin with I am now...

Wow!!! They must be after Ponce too... he tells a similar tale! ;D

[Cobalt]

I had a hotmail account and it happened all the time, I would get mail with letters or numbers inserted into my email address and when I checked the details it would show a list of several different similar email addresses.

I figured it was spammers trying many variables to see if they get a reply from a working email.

[keehah]

Wellcome to the debutante ball of the intelligence age!

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSscyaoOqhJif9tZfBQQ89JhRek56MTM Vyg41qld1Q5RKx89527&t=1

Remember the golden rule of truth and rightousness: Other than your wife, don't have sexual relations that you are not willing to talk about in public along with your work. ;)

You are off to a great start.


And remember the other forum members, at some point it's 'worthless without pictures!' ;D

[Ash_Williams]

The address was similar to mine which was weird. Did not seem to be BCC as the only address I could find in the email were the 1 address that was almost but not the same as mine. Also I can't account for the erasing of the emails.

Right, if it's in BCC, it doesn't show up anywhere after it's sent. "Blind" Carbon Copy. The from address that was similar to your own, was probably simply the first address in the chunk of 1000 or so emails that the spam software sent in that bunch. My spam usually comes from or to some address similar to my last name or my domain name, and I don't think CSIS is trying to tell me how to add to my manhood (if they're such good spies they should know already that it lacks nothing.)

I don't know hotmail's policy on things... they may remove spam you've already received if it's a scam or something. Not sure.

Next time check the header info and see where the email came from. Most likely you can trace it to some random website, and if you try to report it to that website they'll have a pre-emtive message on their contact page denying they've ever sent out any spam...