Annoying Emails

[SPIPER]

I keep getting this damn email, 10-15 times a day. The name of the "hiring manager" changes, and somehow they are sending it from my own FH email to myself?? I've changed my password, but yet they still keep sending me this crap from myself to myself????? How can I make it stop?

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From: <spiper@firehousemail.com>


To: <spiper@firehousemail.com>

Subject: hello

Date: Sat 10-07-2010 06:39 PM


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My name is Tammi TORALES, I am a hiring manager with International Student Exchange Center (EPSEC),
a non-profit international student exchange organization, specializing in managing exchange programs
for university and college students from all over the world.

I would like to offer you a job of an Area Representative with our organization.

An Area Representative's responsibilities include
* Distributing of educational materials and grants from our sponsors
* Preparing materials that will be used for country & state guides for foreign students
* Working with host families, helping to resolve their issues, responding to their concerns

Job Requirements
* 1-2 years of Previous sales experience is required.
* Previous sales experience in admissions, health club memberships, or personnel placement is preferred.
* Telephone appointment setting and interviewing experience.
* Strong communication skills, both on the phone and in person, are required.


Please note that you will need a PC with Internet connection,
as well as a working cell phone or a landline to successfully perform as a Student Organization Representative.
This job would allow you to work from home or office,
since all your functions will be done through a web-based interface, which can be accessed remotely.

All employees are provided with free training materials. The starting salary is $31.28 per hour,
which can be increased depending on your performance level. We offer paid holidays, vacation,
and education reimbursement for full-time and part-time employees.

Our work environment is very dynamic.
Our people are valued.

Apply today for a rewarding experience in the international education & student exchange industry!

Please forward your resume along with your contact information to the following email: Tammi@us-epsec.com

[webteam]

SPIPER,

Thank you for your report. I will forward this on to the appropriate personnel and will get an answer for you ASAP.

Please accept our apologies and be assured that we will get this issue resolved.

Your patience and continued support of Firehouse.com is appreciated.

Firehouse Web Manager

[SPIPER]

Well, a friend of mine showed me exactly how they are doing it.

No password is needed for sending, only receiving.

This is what it looks like if I interactively lookup the mail server for firehousemail.com, connect to it, say I'm spiper@firehousemail.com sending an email to myself, and put in a message:

[mkivela@pcf2 ~]$ nslookup
> set q=mx
> firehousemail.com
Server:         127.0.0.1
Address:        127.0.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
firehousemail.com       mail exchanger = 0 sitemail.everyone.net.

Authoritative answers can be found from:
firehousemail.com       nameserver = ns1.cygnusb2b.com.
firehousemail.com       nameserver = ns2.cygnusb2b.com.
sitemail.everyone.net   internet address = 216.200.145.235


[mkivela@pcf2 ~]$ telnet sitemail.everyone.net 25
Trying 216.200.145.235...
Connected to sitemail.everyone.net (216.200.145.235).
Escape character is '^]'.
220 dm0208.mta.everyone.net ESMTP EON-INBOUND
HELO pcf2.pculture.org
250 dm0208.mta.everyone.net
MAIL FROM: spiper@firehousemail.com
250 Sender okay
RCPT TO: spiper@firehousemail.com
250 Recipient okay
DATA
354 Ready
Subject: This is how they show up as from you.
Email is fundamentally insecure.
.
250 Thanks, queued as dm0208.4c387fa2.2fd74c@dm0208

The folks who hacked together what we currently use for email in 1982, replacing even older less capable systems, figured for sure it would be replaced by 1990.

It's an ancient, fundamentally insecure and insecurable system which is why we have the constant fights against spammers and keep just adding baling wire, duct tape, and bubble gum to it to try and filter out the junk.

My son who is much more computer savvy than I found this:

Search Results - us-epsec.com

Owner (Registrant Contact)

Name: Alexey Zhukov
Company: Beatles Steel
Address:

Novopeschanaya 56 8


City: Moscow
State: Moscow
Country: RU
Zip: 145672
Tel No: 7 4999433354
Fax No:
Email:

Administrative Contact

Name: Alexey Zhukov
Company: Beatles Steel
Address:

Novopeschanaya 56 8


City: Moscow
State: Moscow
Country: RU
Zip: 145672
Tel No: 7 4999433354
Fax No:
Email:

Technical Contact

Name: Alexey Zhukov
Company: Beatles Steel
Address:

Novopeschanaya 56 8


City: Moscow
State: Moscow
Country: RU
Zip: 145672
Tel No: 7 4999433354
Fax No:
Email:

Nameserver Details

NameServer: ns1.reg.ru
NameServer: ns2.reg.ru

Record Details

Creation Date: Jul 09 2010
Expiration Date: Jul 09 2011

[SPIPER]

So, it appears that not only can they send emails to me from myself, but looks like they could send emails to anyone from me. Probably can do this with anyone's Firehousemail email.

[CaptOldTimer]

It is spamming. You sometimes have went to a site that caught you e mail address and now in turn they are sending you trash, spam and juck.

Try going into your pc and set a filter or block that e mail address.

Be careful what you open and go to.

I never type a site name in my browser but do a search on what I am looking for using maybe some like "LA FIRE" for that FD. Once it locates it then I hit on that link.

Also in your address book, add something like,

A3BB9CC192Spammer@hotmail.com

or whatever ever your ISP domain is. This will confused a spammer site.

[webteam]

SPIPER,

Unfortunately, there is nothing that Firehouse.com can do other than to tell you as stated above, to block the sender by blacklisting them.

Firehouse.com is not sending the email and therefore have no control over what others send, virus, etc.

Again, use caution with what you are opening and we do apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you and do appreciate you bringing this as well as a solution to the other members of our forum.

We appreciate your continued support of Firehouse.com.

Firehouse Web Manager

[SPIPER]

I realize FH is not sending them, I now know who is. But in order to block them, I have to block myself since they are essentially hacking fhmail to send these.

[webteam]

SPIPER,

Again, we do apologize and if there is anything Firehouse.com can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact us either via the forums or via the Contact us Tab of the website.

Your continued support is appreciated.

Firehouse Web Manager

[DeputyMarshal]

I realize FH is not sending them, I now know who is. But in order to block them, I have to block myself since they are essentially hacking fhmail to send these.

Odds are they aren't hacking FH at all but just spoofing your email address. The fact that there is a firehousemail address showing doesn't mean that the email originated through FH. You'd need to look at the full headers on one of the emails to see where it actually came from.

[DeputyMarshal]

So, it appears that not only can they send emails to me from myself, but looks like they could send emails to anyone from me. Probably can do this with anyone's Firehousemail email.

FWIW, if this gaping security hole was being used very frequently, FH would have probably been blackholed by now by every major blackhole service and firehousemail would be unusable. That's why I suspect a simpler spoofing explanation rather than one using an exploit at FH.

[grecko.1]

In a way, this "gaping security hole" is the same as the spoofing you refer to.

SMTP, Simple Mail Transport Protocol, is how emails are generally sent. You send an email via SMTP, to an SMTP server, which sends it along to other mail servers before it finally reaches its destination.

Unfortunately, the SMTP way of doing things has no built in security measures. It was not intended for use on an internet where "bad" people exist - it was designed for use on research networks, where there was no reason to spoof or otherwise misuse the protocol. So, when one of these middle servers receives an email, it just passes it on to the correct server, regardless of where it came from. So I can set my email address in Outlook or another mail client (or use something like telnet, which is the code snippet originally posted in here) to anything I want, and send emails from that address. I can't receive them that easily, but I can send an email from anyone.

An easy way to block this, is to just block your own email address. Unless you send emails to yourself, from yourself, this won't cause you any problems.

Hope that helps,
Grecko