HELP Desk

Email overload

I have exhausted all avenues trying to end the following problem and hope you can help. A while back I mistakenly sent a test email to: abc1234@Hotmail.com. Since then this email has kept bouncing back to me almost on an hourly basis.

(I have been using Eudora 7.0 as my mail program for many weeks now). It returns with some funny messages as you will see down below. Whatever I have done to stop it was in vain. My ISP, Asianet, told me to seek help from Hotmail people to erase it from their servers, which in turn I got a reply that 1234abc account is not accessible and to see my ISP about it.

I have tried all the Eudora tricks to filter and stop it and was partially successful, only for it to cue itself to be sent and clog my sent box.

This is the message that I get:

Alert message!

Dear User

Your router has detected and protected you against an attempt to gain access to your network. This may have been an attempted hacker intrusion, or perhaps just your Internet Service Provider doing routine network maintenance.

Most of these network probes are nothing to be worried about - these types of random probes should NOT be reported, but you may want to report repeated intrusions attempts. Save this email for comparison with future alert messages.

Your router Alert Information

Time: 01/24/2007, 18:28:08

Message: SYN Flood to Host

Source: 192.168.2.2, 1928

Destination:69.73.188.199, 80 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)

Visit the UXN Combat Spam web site to get more detailed information about the intruder - http://combat.uxn.com/

1. Type the intruder's IP address into the IP WHOIS search engine

2. Click the Query Button

3. Detailed network and administration information will be displayed

I also get similar messages from Mailer-Daemon to the same effect and I have tried combat.uxn.com, but that web site does not exist.

What do you make of it?

PAUL MAZOR

Database replies: Wanda Sloan replies: Your ISP can blacklist mail from certain addresses and send them to the Big Bit Bucket in the Sky if they wish. They can use the same techniques as spam blocking, and block all mail from this Hotmail address you give.

You should be able to do the same thing with Eudora. Simply use the Hotmail address as a filter, and Eudora can get rid of the email without your seeing it.

If an email message you never open is able to resend itself, then you have a serious viral problem. By your description, I would strongly suspect that that email is infected - ie, that your computer is infected by this email. So you will want to meticulously check your computer for infection by virus, worm or malware.

You should try going into your email via webmail, or with an email checker such as Eprompter, and deleting the offending email on the mail server, if your ISP refuses to do that.

The last resort, I suppose, would be to ask . . . well, to demand that your ISP give you another user identity, or set up a new email address at, say, Gmail, and stop using your current address. It is no more fun changing email addresses than physical addresses, but it does stop the bad email, at least for a while.

Good place for a Run

Right off the bat, I admit computers and I are more like combatants than master and tool, and their ways are not my ways.

Besotted by Wanda Sloan's description of Vista Start Menu, I downloaded it. Another article by Wanda told me how to disable the part of Windows that blocks me from seeing some web sites. Part of her precise yet somehow lilting instructions included using "Run." I could not find "Run" on Vista. There's something that has the word Run in it, but it's not what we want.

When I minimised Vista and, abjectly, hit the Windows Start button to get at Run... Vista popped back up again. Using my tried and true method of trying the same thing over and over again until stupor sets in, I established that I was never going to see RUN again as long as Vista was on my computer. So now it's off.

I know you are infallible; I know I'm not. Where did I go wrong? Where does Vista hide RUN? God knows it's got everything else, and flaunts it.

ROB SCHWAB

Database replies: Wanda Sloan replies: If it is any solace, I can assure you that few people seem to have a smooth relationship with their computers, even those who try to anthropomorphise the blasted machines. But I'm sure it is not any solace. As I have noted many times, the machines are out to get us.

Vista Start Menu has a run command. It is down at the very bottom, integrated with what looks like a search box. Type in your Run command, then hit Enter, or click on the word "Run" just to the right.

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Bangkok Post

Last Updated : Wednesday April 11, 2007