Why am I receiving so much e-mail I didn't send?

Problem:
You are receiving a lot of e-mail bounce-backs that you didn't send. 

The e-mails look like spam but you never sent them.

This is a common problem and has to do with the nature of e-mail and could be caused by a lot of different reasons.

Quick-Summary:  Spam-blasts are normal.  If you leave it for a day and it keeps coming back, it means that the IP sending it isn't a compromised server and there is another problem.

Fix #1 - Your e-mail is insecure
It is possible that your computer (or e-mail account) is is actually sending out e-mail.  This is because your password is insecure or you have a virus / trojan on your computer.

You can try to change your password and clean-up any viruses you may have on your computer.

Fix #2 - Spammers are using your e-mail
Spammers can also use your e-mail using a process called "spoofing" and the result is "backscatter".

To give you an idea of what is happening, let's consider regular snail-mail.

If a person decides to send out 10,000 spam-flyers in your neighborhood and put your return-address on it, there isn't much you can do.  If it gets sent to the wrong address or a recipient puts down "return to sender", it will go back to your office and you will wonder why you have so many flyers when you didn't send any out.

It's the same thing with e-mail.  Unfortunately, a flyer takes $1.50 to send out and an e-mail is free!

So a spammer is actually using your e-mail address as the "from" field and then when it bounces back, it's getting into your inbox.

Solution:  The only solution for this is for Maknet to add an SPF record to your account.  This means making a list of "authorized" servers that can send e-mail on your behalf.  It isn't full-proof, but it's the only thing you can do really.

The reason why it's not full-proof is because the servers need to implement "SPF-checking". Back to the flyer analogy, it means you have a website with, "These are the Zip Codes that our business sends from".  However, the receptionist that gets the flyer can't be bothered to check, and then returns the flyer back to your address.

Fix #3 - Website insecurity
The last cause of this problem might be from an insecure web-form.  This is pretty rare nowadays, but usually comes from an insecure "tell a friend" form.  If you put a captcha on it, it might help.

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