I don’t sell Viagra, honest

[Stephanie Bennett]

I just rec’d an email Viagra ad that LOOKS like it comes from ME. My name, my email address show as ‘from’, it even shows my picture from my v-card. Just know that the spammers are able to make an email LOOK like it comes from someone else. And they seem to be smart/dastardly enough to categorize and target other harpists with a harpist’s return address. So just another reminder –

[laura-smithburg-byrne]

Thank you for posting this ugly issue, it is a real problem for everyone but especially for professional women.

I too have had my name and image hijacked by spammers and hackers who used my identity as a mule for their malicious activities.

SOMEONE took pictures from my web-site and advertised “sexy pics and videos” of me available with the click of a mouse.

Hmm, I never took any sexy pics or vids and yet there it is in cyber-world as if it were true.

SOMEONE also registered me with fake profiles on “dating sites” and I received innumerable unwanted e-mails from interested individuals. This has happened to me several times.

SOMEONE also took my name and profession and put a copyright symbol next to it and used it to blog on porn sites.

This blog was accompanied by several nude pictures of faceless women on the sidebar.

I don’t have a problem nudity, I have a problem with sexual exploitation and fraud. Because of the way the internet works, the more often your name/profession is recognized the more it gets used. So for all your advertising for gigs, the more well known you are, the more likely you are to get “used”.

However, there are malicious individuals who will target you and take your hard earned popularity and put a negative spin on it to achieve their own agenda.

It is very upsetting when SOMEONE USES YOU for their own malicious gain by attempting to destroy your reputation while cowardly hiding behind a computer.

Achieving success in the music business is hard enough, but it is especially hard when certain people try to force you to pay A NASTY PRICE !

[Tacye]

It is quite likely that these messages have not been sent out to all and sundry.

[Stephanie Bennett]

Oh, okay, that does make me feel better… I hope it’s NOT going out to all & sundry. I just know that several years ago a harpist I’d never emailed let me know that “I” had sent her a virus… obviously it WAS one case at least, of sending it to a harpist & making it look like it came from another harpist… grrr…

[Tacye]

That would almost certainly have been an automatic virus..

[laura-smithburg-byrne]

Yes, it can certainly be an automated virus and yes your e-mail identity can be stolen from someone else’s address book. But it is important to realize that sometimes it is malicious. I had one investigated and it turned out to be a web-site that specialized in slandering anyone for a price. It is easy to ignore these issues until it happens to you, and then protecting your identity and reputation becomes a legal issue.

[Stephanie Bennett]

Oh how awful!!! How did you have it investigated? Did the perp who hired the slander website get caught??

[laura-smithburg-byrne]

I can’t discuss any specific details on that with you at this time.

However, there are professional computer forensic specialists and cybercrime units in law enforcement who have tremendous knowledge and skill in this area.

There are also excellent attorneys who specialize in cybercrimes of all kinds.

Never underestimate the threat of a subpoena and legal action.

[helen-rudd]

Make sure you watch using your computer on open networks, for example at a barnes and noble or starbucks, or your local library. Anyone with access to the network (which is everyone..it is open after all) can see any info you tap into while on the network…so if you log into your email account and do not have appropriate protections on your computer a hacker can hijack your entier email account, sent email to everyone on your lists, and use your email address to send out spam.
You can see more info about this here-
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-149778.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_security

[Kathleen Clark]

I’ve never gotten a message from myself, but my spam catcher periodically receives hundreds of undeliverable message notices from emails I supposedly sent world wide. Most of them are in Russian, so I am assuming someone in Russia got hold of our email address and is using it. However, the ones in English are very embarrassing and judging by the worldwide volume and nature of the undeliverables, our email address is on some kind of list making the spamming circuit (i.e. used by spammers). I set up our spam guard at Earthlink to reject emails to myself, so at least they don’t all come down into our computer!

[sherry-lenox]

That’s interesting Kathleen- I’ve had a series of several emails from myself in Japanese or Chinese symbols. They were over and around New Years.

[Kathleen Clark]

We’re still trying to figure out how our home computer email address got on a spammer list since we do not use it on the internet. We use a yahoo email address for all our internet interaction and have only given out our personal computer email address to family and friends. The only thing we can think of is if someone’s e-address book got hijacked or it got picked up from one of those chain emails going around ad infinitum, which I never forward and truly wish and keep requesting no one puts us on. Once you are on one of those your e-address gets forwarded to everybody everywhere.

[Author]

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