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Yesterday and today I have started receiving spam (about Viagra etc)
in my Gmail spam folder....about 25-30 messages a day.
When I put the cursor over the sender's name, it shows my gmail
address as the sender.
Clearly I don't want to block this sender as I send stuff from my work
account to my gmail account to work at home, and I still want my
genuine messages to get through. However, I want to block these
messages, and more importantly, I want to know how they started. Have
I got someone accessing my emails? And can they send things to other
people as if they are me?

wrote:
User-Agent: G2/1.0

> Yesterday and today I have started receiving spam (about Viagra etc)
> in my Gmail spam folder....about 25-30 messages a day.
> When I put the cursor over the sender's name, it shows my gmail
> address as the sender.

Gmail has correctly diagnosed the spam and placed it in its/your spam
folder. That is the way it is supposed to work. The 'construction' of
spam is too long a topic to develop fully here, but it is perfectly
'normal' for a spam's bogus From to be your own address.

> Clearly I don't want to block this sender as I send stuff from my work
> account to my gmail account to work at home,

Using 'block sender' is not a good strategy to use on spam. Don't do
that. In this particular spam filtering example you have named in which
one characterization of the spam was that the From was your own address,
gmail has performed its function and filtered the spam. There is no
need to try to imagine some other additional strategy to filter the
particular spam in question. Gmail is doing its job.

> and I still want my
> genuine messages to get through. However, I want to block these
> messages, and more importantly, I want to know how they started.

You cannot make spam stop. You cannot prevent a spam process from
sending spam to you and you cannot prevent the process from putting your
name/address in the From or anywhere else. As an enduser who is not
running a mailserver, you handle your spam by filtering it and keeping
it out of your Inbox. That is exactly what gmail is doing for you.
Everything is working as it is supposed to.

> Have
> I got someone accessing my emails?

No.

> And can they send things to other
> people as if they are me?

Yes. Other people can get spam with your addy as bogus From. Spam
(almost) always has bogus From. The bogus From/s which are used on spam
are generally either the same addresses which are used when the spam is
sent To (or 'envelope' Rcpt To that you can't see) or else a From is a
'socially engineered' From which is contrived to make it more likely for
the spam to be opened, such as paypal scamspam.

The fact that spam has continuously changing bogus From made of the same
addresses as the spam recipients is one of many reasons that you should
*not* use 'block sender' on spam. That is not only wasteful of
resources and doesn't work, but it can result in your interfering with
your receipt of goodmail from your friends.


You are posting to a usenet group using googlegroups and a browser.
That is a bad way to read and post to usenet. You should use a
newsreader and a newsagent. There are plenty of free ones which are
easy to learn to use.

--
Mike Easter

Google-posted:
>
> Yesterday and today I have started receiving spam
> (about Viagra etc) in my Gmail spam folder....about 25-30
> messages a day. When I put the cursor over the sender's name,
> it shows my gmail address as the sender.
>
Hmmm. It's a tricky one, mich. It's a well-known fact that more and more
people are beginning to send themselves Viagra-themed spam over the
internet; what isn't known is why. The most popular theory is that the
unconscious part of the brain is separating from the conscious part and
assuming a whole new identity (a split personality, if you will) in
order to tell the primary personality something. In this case, you are
clearly trying to tell yourself that you need a good shag. Probably.
>
> Clearly I don't want to block this sender
>
Clear as a bell, mich. If you think about it, blocking *yourself* would
be an extremely silly thing to do, because (a) you wouldn't get all
those great Viagra offers from yourself, and (b) people would think you
were peculiar.
>
> Have I got someone accessing my emails?
>
Christ - I hope not, mich. Imagine what your family & friends would say
if they read all those Viagra emails you send yourself. You would be
spurned, and pointed-at in the street.
>
> And can they send things to other people as if they are me?
>
Well ....... let's face it. mich. Things couldn't get any worse, could they?

[dwonda]

Originally Posted by Mike Easter

wrote:
User-Agent: G2/1.0

> Yesterday and today I have started receiving spam (about Viagra etc)
> in my Gmail spam folder....about 25-30 messages a day.
> When I put the cursor over the sender's name, it shows my gmail
> address as the sender.

Gmail has correctly diagnosed the spam and placed it in its/your spam
folder. That is the way it is supposed to work. The 'construction' of
spam is too long a topic to develop fully here, but it is perfectly
'normal' for a spam's bogus From to be your own address.

> Clearly I don't want to block this sender as I send stuff from my work
> account to my gmail account to work at home,

Using 'block sender' is not a good strategy to use on spam. Don't do
that. In this particular spam filtering example you have named in which
one characterization of the spam was that the From was your own address,
gmail has performed its function and filtered the spam. There is no
need to try to imagine some other additional strategy to filter the
particular spam in question. Gmail is doing its job.

> and I still want my
> genuine messages to get through. However, I want to block these
> messages, and more importantly, I want to know how they started.

You cannot make spam stop. You cannot prevent a spam process from
sending spam to you and you cannot prevent the process from putting your
name/address in the From or anywhere else. As an enduser who is not
running a mailserver, you handle your spam by filtering it and keeping
it out of your Inbox. That is exactly what gmail is doing for you.
Everything is working as it is supposed to.

> Have
> I got someone accessing my emails?

No.

> And can they send things to other
> people as if they are me?

Yes. Other people can get spam with your addy as bogus From. Spam
(almost) always has bogus From. The bogus From/s which are used on spam
are generally either the same addresses which are used when the spam is
sent To (or 'envelope' Rcpt To that you can't see) or else a From is a
'socially engineered' From which is contrived to make it more likely for
the spam to be opened, such as paypal scamspam.

The fact that spam has continuously changing bogus From made of the same
addresses as the spam recipients is one of many reasons that you should
*not* use 'block sender' on spam. That is not only wasteful of
resources and doesn't work, but it can result in your interfering with
your receipt of goodmail from your friends.


You are posting to a usenet group using googlegroups and a browser.
That is a bad way to read and post to usenet. You should use a
newsreader and a newsagent. There are plenty of free ones which are
easy to learn to use.

--
Mike Easter

Ok you need to understand something Mike Easter. Yes gmail is doing its job its doing its job its doing its job, its so awesome and perfect and lovely... I probably get 25 spam emails again, and the thing about spam filters for me at least is that they are completely redundant. For example, I don't know about gmail, but I know in hotmail you can't not have a junk mail folder, but you can play with its settings yet you can't turn it off. Because junk mail filters are not perfect and never will be I still need to look through each email to make sure its not going to delete something that isn't junk (and that happens often) so this means I waste time by having to click on my junk mail folder and waiting for it to load. It would be better if I didn't have a junk mail filter at all, that way i could look at all my emails on one page. I and probably most people would love to avoid ever getting the email into any folder for stuff that is obviously going to and always will be junk email. It is a perfectly normal, and reasonable, and sensible request. Maybe you never check your junk mail and you like to assume gmail is doing its job and thats that, but for people like me who demand absolutes and can't risk certain failures and dream of an ideal world, junk mail folders and filters are simply another facet in this world I choose to be redundant. It either works or it doesn't and in this case it doesn't.