Re: spam

[Tim Roberts]

Hans Aberg wrote:
> It may look a bit mysterious at this end, because it gives an impression of 
> somebody hacking the mailing list, whereas in reality, the mail account has 
> been hacked. One way to do the latter is to install a key logger in Internet 
> cafes, a method common in some parts of the world, I am told.

There is now a simple tool floating around the hacker community that
does a brute-force dictionary attack on a mail server.  You give it a
server name and a list of known email accounts, and it tries hundreds of
thousands of common passwords.  Once they have your password, they can
send mail through your server as if they were you.  Your account and
your server get blacklisted, and it takes you days to wade through the
millions of spam bounce messages you get in reply.

 The tool is simple enough that anyone can run it.  And since many
people use simple passwords (like "password"), they generally get a hit
pretty quickly.  If your email password is a simple word, NOW is the
time to change it.  Use capitals, lower case, numbers, and symbols, if
your provider allows them.  Consider, for example, using a phrase.  For
example, "I love to play music".  Convert the "to" to "2", add an
exclamation, and you might get "Il2pm!".  That's easy to remember but
not easy to guess.

-- 
Tim Roberts, address@hidden
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.