Friday, January 25, 2008 - What the heck is "Spoofing"?
Almost daily, InternetCrusade gets a call about "spoofing"... even though most people don't even know what "spoofing" is.
In short, "Spoofing" is when someone (usually a spammer) puts your return address on the e-mail(s) they send out. This is no different than someone putting your return address on a physical envelope. When the postman takes that envelope to a bad address, the envelope is sent to the return address—even if that isn’t the person who actually sent the letter.
Spammers almost always do this. If they “spoof” your address, it makes it a lot harder to find the person sending out junk mail… and as an added bonus, they don’t get all the returned mail from all the bad addresses they send to—you do! If they happen to “spoof” one of your e-mail addresses, you are the lucky one who gets to deal with the bounces and/or angry replies.
Once spammers know a domain name exists, they will put random words/characters before the @YourDomain.com in the return address of all their mail and send away. This usually only happens for a few days or a few weeks because the spammer moves on to a new domain name after a while.
The reason many InternetCrusade customers experience this is because we are one of the few companies that give our customers the use of unlimited addresses on their domain name through the use of a feature called a “catch-all”. If the catch-all feature is turned on, you will receive e-mail addressed to EVERYTHING@YourDomain.com. The chances of a spammer using AnythingTheyWant@YourDomain.com are a lot higher than them sending as a specific address like Mary@YourDomain.com.
Unfortunately, spoofing an e-mail address is easy, and there is no way to stop someone from doing it. There is however a way to stop you from having to deal with all the returned mail… turn off your catch-all. This can be done with a quick call or e-mail to your friends here at InternetCrusade. We can leave certain addresses active if you need us to (like 123MainStreet@YourDomain.com or any other address(es) you have given out) and we can turn you catch-all back on whenever you want- it’s usually best to wait a week or two.
Questions? Comments? Concerns? E-Mail our Customer Service Team at CustomerService@RealTown.com
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Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - RE: What the heck is "Spoofing"? |
| Posted by Larry Greer |
Which states in the US, other than Florida, have passed Anti-Spoofing legislation? |
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Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - RE: What the heck is "Spoofing"? |
| Posted by Ashley Ruble-English |
I'm not sure which states (if any) have passed anti-spoofing legislation, but I can say that even if states or even the US creates anti-spoofing legislation, it would be difficult to enforce.
If someone gets caught, it's great to have laws in place where spoof-ers will get in trouble for it, but if it is near impossible to catch them, what good does it do? |
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