Zombie Computers - Is Mine One?

[Ze Muffinman]

Easy: Send an email to everyone in your address book asking if they
recieved any spam from you, and send all of thoses emails that you get
in .eml format to qualified spam researchers at knujon@coldrain.net
DoctorBill wrote:
> On another News Group, I was told about a form of SPAM that I have
> suddenly started receiving.
>
> It is called "Pump & Dump" penny stock SPAM.
>
> I was told it comes from Computers that have been subverted into Zombies
> and that send this garbage to addresses in their address books.
>
> Is there a way to find out if my machine is doing this?
>
> I am using Win 98SE (Please! No comments - I know it's old, but I like
> it) and SeaMonkey 1.0.5 (A Mozilla Product)
> as my Browser.
>
> DoctorBill

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Ze Muffinman wrote:

> DoctorBill wrote:
>> On another News Group, I was told about a form of SPAM that I have
>> suddenly started receiving.
>>
>> It is called "Pump & Dump" penny stock SPAM.

All kinds of spam comes from all kinds of places.

>> I was told it comes from Computers that have been subverted into
>> Zombies and that send this garbage to addresses in their address
>> books.
>>
>> Is there a way to find out if my machine is doing this?

What are the results of anti-virus/anti-trojan scans? Is your computer
running a lot slower than it used to? Do you see outbound traffic
through your firewall when none is expected?

The spam does not have to use addresses in your address book. The
spammers' bot nets feed the zombies with the content of the spam and a
few thousand addresses, then the zombie sits there and sends. It would
be more likely that a virus would bomb your address book people.

>> I am using Win 98SE (Please! No comments - I know it's old, but I
>> like it) and SeaMonkey 1.0.5 (A Mozilla Product) as my Browser.
>
> Easy: Send an email to everyone in your address book asking if they
> recieved any spam from you, and send all of thoses emails that you
> get in .eml format to qualified spam researchers at
> knujon@coldrain.net

DoctorBill, he's funnin' ya. Don't do that.

Yes, there are zombied computers. Millions of them. A high percentage of
them are clueless broadband users who have no routers, firewalls, or ..
well .. clues.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck