Why do I receive spam that is addressed to others?

The Subject line states my question. I want to know why spam that's addressed to other MobileMe members ends up in my Mail in box. And what can I do to stop it? More to the point, what can Apple do to stop it?

This is a user-to-user discussion/help forum hosted by Apple. You are not talking to Apple here.
This is also an iPad discussion forum not MobileMe.
Try Apple MobileMe support at http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/

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HT4864 I just received spam from myself addressed to myself and other @me users. Is Apple aware of this and has their server at iCloud been hacked?

This was the e-mail I received:
Environmental company currently looking for partners from all over the world.
Commission of 5 percent on 200K USD monthly turnover derivedfrom sales of intellectual property products on the internetFeatures required:- Company ownership- Timely performance of all tasks- Continuous availability for Email, Skype and telephone feedbackConsidering your interest, please furnish us with the following:- Full Name- Age- Location- Telephone- EmailPlease reply to: Kind Regards,Marketing, Liaison and HR Department
<Email Edited by Host>

Firstly, it's a really bad idea to post your email address (or anyone else's) - it's an invitation to even more spam - and I've asked the Hosts to remove them.
When people receive emails which appear to come from their own address but they haven't sent they naturally tend to be concerned: however it's most unlikely that anyone has hacked their account, they've just been targeted by one of two common spammers' techniques: both arise because it's all too easy to forge the 'from' address on messages to be something other than the real one.
There are two things that can happen. One is that the sender has forged the 'from' address to be the same as the 'to' address (so other people will see it coming from themselves, not you), presumably in the hope of confusing spam filters. It's harmless, if extremely annoying. Delete it (never ever answer spam or try to unsubscribe from it), and you don't need to be worried about it.
The other problem is that a spammer is forging your address as the 'from' address on a whole batch of messages. Usually the first thing you hear about this is when you start getting bounce messages because the spam has been sent to non-existent addresses and is being bounced to you. In this case it looks as if this is what has happened but you've also got onto their mailing list so you're getting it directly.
There's no point at all in responding to it. It's infuriating but normally stops after a bit as they move on to another forged address.
There isn't really anything you can do about it: closing the account isn't really worth the hassle unless you are totally swamped, because you will have to tell everyone your new address. Apple can't really do any more than they already are about spam.

How to stop receiving spam messages blindly addressed to user "admin"?

I've done a bit of searching but can't seem to find any relevant posts, so I'm hoping someone can be of help.
I'm using MacOS X Server 10.2.4. My user account on the server is "alan", and I set it up in Workgroup Manager so that all email addressed to me at "[email protected]" is automatically forwarded to my pacbell.net address. All that is working fine.
However, when I check my email at my pacbell.net address, in addition to the forwarded mail addressed to "[email protected]", I am also getting a lot of spam addressed to "[email protected]". Evidently, many spammers will just blindly spam "[email protected]" assuming that it will be a valid account. So what appears to be happening is since my user "alan" on the server is also an administrator account, there is some sort of default alias connecting the user "admin" to "alan", which in turn is causing me to receive the spam messages. They must be blind, because I've never used or referenced the address "[email protected]" anywhere.
So, the big question is --- how can I delink the alias "admin" from "alan"? It does not appear as a shortname in the Workgroup Manager under the user "alan", so I can't delete the alias there. I'm guessing there's probably a file somewhere I need to edit to do this, but can't seem to find it? I would be fine with redirecting mail addressed to "admin" to a null account that doesn't have email active, so those messages will just bounce back to the spammers.
Alternatively, is it possible to simply reject all mail sent to "[email protected]"?
Any help is appreciated!
Many thanks in advance,
Alan

David,
That would make sense, since user "alan" is definitely a member of the group "admin".
I see that sendmail is installed on the system, though I'm not sure that sendmail is in fact what is running the mail sever (although it could be).
I discovered this much at least -- the command to start the mail server is:
/usr/sbin/MailService-autostart on
So it would seem that "MailService" might be the name of the server app, or something to that effect. If so, how can I modify its configuration files to avert this behavior? Or is there some way to blanket reject all mail send to "admin"? (sorry if I've been repetitive) ...

Why do i receive messages that my fire fox is old, but i instaled new version 16.0.1.

I installed firefox version 16.0.1 and i still get messages that my firefox is an old version so i need to update it. but vhen i download new version it is still the same, 16.0.1
this happens when i come to firefox web site or facebook or gmail, allways the same message apears.
and when i go to help and about firefox he checks for updates and i get message that my firefox is up to date. so what to do
and allso i have norton antivirus and it is not compatible with this version of firefox, what to do with that problem

You have a general.useragent.override pref that makes your Firefox version appear a Firefox/3.6.13 in the user agent.
*Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; hr; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C)
See:
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Finding+your+Firefox+version
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/websites-say-firefox-outdated-or-incompatible
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Resetting_your_useragent_string_to_its_compiled-in_default

HT4864 Why did Apple give me an iCloud address which is already used by someone else?

Hi.
Just set up my iCloud account and was given the [email protected] by default. I thought I would try and test this address and sent a few emails to it. As time went by I was still waiting to see these test emails and still received nothing. The next day I receive an email from a person with the same icloud address that I was given, telling me that he has this already!
Rather confusing so I have had to set up an alias to get round the problem. Question is as my title says...why give me this address in the first place?
Comments appreciated...

Look at the source of some of those messages (View/Message/Raw Source). It might give you a better idea about where they originated and where they've been. If it looks like they are originating from your computer, you might have a problem.
It is a simple matter to spoof someone else's email address or use a fake email address. I've received spam that was ostensibly from myself and I am always receiving spam from random but real-looking email addresses. If a rejection is sent to the "originating" email address, I imagine that would go to the spoofed address.

My laptop receives texts that my iPhone 5 does not

I don't know why suddenly I receive texts that do not show up at all on my iPhone. Also, I have been having a problem sending texts. I type the text and then hit the Send button. The text doesn't do out nor do I receive a Not Delivered message. Please help.

Hi macushla,
I apologize, I'm a bit unclear on the exact nature of the issue you are describing. If you are having issues sending or receiving SMS text messages in Messages on your iPhone, you may find the troubleshooting outlined in the following article helpful:
iOS: Troubleshooting Messages - Apple Support
Regards,
- Brenden

I have received emails that appear to come from my email address. How can I stop this/ or filter out this spam

I have received emails that appear to come from my email address. How can I stop this/filter out this spam? Thanks

Apps are permanently tied to the Apple ID used to purchase them, and all future updates will require you to enter the password associated with this ID, whether you are currently using this ID for purchases or not. If you are being prompted for your sister-in-law's Apple ID when updating it means that there must be one or more apps on your phone that was purchased using her Apple ID. (When she synced with your computer it may have transferred this app to your library. It was subsequently synced to your phone.) The only way to stop the prompt for her ID is to delete these apps from your phone and your iTunes library and repurchase them using your Apple ID.

I am receiving spam emails from my own email address and need to put a stop to it asap please.

Hi as per above, for the last week I have been receiving spam emails from my own email address. Can anyone help me please to put a stop to this and also perhaps explain how it happened? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.

'''but not sure what you mean when you say I must not store it on my computer?'''
I was just thinking that if someone or some software agent is accessing your computer then they also have access to saved passwords if for instance it is webmail and the password is stored on Firefox, or if you store logins and passwords in any other utility.
'''I have asked my service provider again for help - waiting to hear from them. I don't store passwords in any other utility that I know of? Are passwords stored automatically somewhere on computers?'''
An obvious thing to do is also make sure you log out of email and do not leave yourself logged in or use the remember me option.
'''Yes, thank you, I always log out and never use the remember me option'''
'''Thank you for your input. I did report this to my service provider and they assured me that no one is accessing my account?
I wonder what they meant by that
possibly that the account has been accessed only from your computer and the same IP Address has been shown
Maybe just that the mail used your login and password.
'''I have asked them to verify the above - thank you. :)'''
What are the emails ? do they make sense, are they also sent to others ? and of course is it likely anyone else is using your computer and sending these emails.
'''The emails make some sort of sense but not much. As far as I know I am the only one receiving them but just to be safe I deleted my Address Book. No one else has access to my computer - I am the only one who uses it. :(('''
it is probably worth contacting them again, give a couple of examples of the emails you are referring to and tell them that you yourself did not type those emails. Ask if they can explain how this may have happened.
'''Done and awaiting their response. :) Thank you'''
As a general security measure it is also good practice
to use a limited user account for day to day work not an admin account
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/windows_security_whynot_admin.mspx
to set passwords up to login to your computer
'''what is a limited user account? Also, I am now busy adding a password to my computer and making all files private through User Accounts. Would that help do you think?'''
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/usercpl_create_password.mspx
(IIRC at one time by default XP setup an Administration account with a nul default password, an F8 reboot would get you in by just using the return key when the password prompt showed ) P.S. as mentioned method 3 in this article http://www.slideshare.net/passexpert/six-methods-to-crack-windows-admin-password-remove-unknown-windows-admin-password. Rather a serious security hole.
'''"oooh, sorry, the above paragraph is way past my limited knowledge? Will read the article again and get back to you. Thank you so much for your help so far. :)'''

Updated my AppleID account info. Under password security shows an email address to be used to receive email with new password settings. I need to update that email address, how do I do that? Thanks!

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Thanks for the help Niel. I couldn't change the rescue email address (an address that no longer exists and is therefore useless) until I could correctly answer the security questions. After numerous guesses, finally got them right. Was then presented with the option to change the rescue email address. Guess the only other option was to have Apple Support make the change or reset my account info. Have made note of the correct answers so this won't happen again. Thanks for the fast response!!

I cannot download OS X Mountain Lion, I get an error message that says: "We could not complete your purchase. The product distribution file could not be verified. It may be damaged or was not signed." Why am I receiving this message?

I cannot download OS X Mountain Lion, I get an error message that says: "We could not complete your purchase. The product distribution file could not be verified. It may be damaged or was not signed." Why am I receiving this message?

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One user reported:
Deleted file com.apple.appstore in /var/folders/, dissabled VirusBarrier X6: problem solved!

We use the Apple mail server to get e-mails from our gmail and comcast mail accounts. Recently we have been getting spam that claims to be sent to a gmail address, but when I check that address directly, there is no such e-mail. ???

We use the Apple mail server to get e-mails from our gmail and comcast mail accounts. Recently we have been getting spam that claims to be sent to a gmail address, but when I check that address directly, there is no such e-mail, either in the inbox or in the spam folder. Is it possible to bypass the gmail account and send directly to the Apple mail server, spoofing the gmail address?

Maybe some info here for you about spoofing. (and much additional info)
http://www.thesafemac.com
Hope this helps

HT1349 I am receiving emails on my Dell computer/Microsoft XP software that are addressed to my deceased husband. How can I cancel that account? I don't have any idea as to what hardware product serial number is.

I am receiving emails on my Dell computer/Microsoft XP software that are addressed to my deceased husband. I don't have any idea as to what the hardware product serial number is. How can I delete the iCloud account?

You can't delete an iCloud account, you can only stop using it. Is email addressed to him coming to your email address or his?

The billing address it's correct ! why we can't place any order for this address ? On the screen appear that the address is not correct !

the billing address it's correct ! why we can't place any order for this address ? On the screen appear that the address is not correct !

Adobe Reader is free; you don't need to order it.
If you try to order another product or service I suggest to Contact Adobe Customer Care.

HT204135 Why do I receive an error message that my printer is paused?

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HT203097 Why do I receive a message that states I need to change to my media sync settings on iphone when my summary shows over 3GB of free space?

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# Yes, if you go to accounts.firefox.org, sign out, you will now be signed out.
# Sign back in, and you will be asked to save the password you entered.
# This will save the password and autocomplete if you have this option turned on.
I am not exactly sure why the menu did not detect the password change or if it was stored incorrectly after you changed it? But after storing the correct password you can manage any duplicate passwords in the password manager.[[Password manager - Remember, delete and change saved passwords in Firefox]]

Why do I receive spam that is addressed to others?

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