[SEL] Re: <snip> Spam O.T.

[Bill Dickerson]

Paul - I respectfully disagree - pond scum actually serves a useful purpose
in the natural order of the food chain.
Your comment actually brings pond scum down to their level, it's much more
important than that.

Bill


>
Hi Jerry (and List),
They would have found those internal addresses by checking the MX 
records for your main address. They're unlikely to have hacked your 
server - you can see them with the name server lookup tool 'nslookup' - 
here is what I got for cyberserv.co.za

# nslookup
 > set type=MX
 > cyberserv.co.za
Server:         203.12.35.50
Address:        203.12.35.50#53

Non-authoritative answer:
cyberserv.co.za mail exchanger = 10 taita.cyberserv.co.za.

Authoritative answers can be found from:
cyberserv.co.za nameserver = taita.cyberserv.co.za.
cyberserv.co.za nameserver = tahiti.cyberserv.co.za.
 >
#

MX are "Mail eXchanger" - it is how email actually finds its way from 
server to server - kinda like a street directory for the postman. All 
this information is public.

Spammers do this not because they want to get you three copies of 
everything, but because there are two kinds of spammer - there are 
address harvesters and spam transmitters. The harvesters get paid for 
each valid unique address they provide to the transmitters - so they 
cheat (after all they're pond scum) and provide several valid addresses 
that all point at you.

Regards
Paul
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