spammers using my domain names in their "from" line in email. What is the best way to put a stop to this.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$4 Answers
SMTP servers can be optionally set up to require authentication and to restrict sending from a predetermined set of IP addresses but this does nothing to prevent the problem that you describe. These spammers can easily set up their own unrestricted SMTP servers or more likely use misconfigured servers or compromised computers from around the world to do their dirty work.
You could reduce some, but not all, of the impact this practice has by using SPF records on your name server but in practice I have found this to be mostly ineffective.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
1. Your domain name is an important part of your brand
2. You have sufficient funds to retain good, attack-dog lawyers
3. You can actually trace the spammer back to an entity in the same legal jurisdiction as your company
4. Said jurisdiction has laws that protect your company's brand/trademark/name, etc.
...you could try suing them or issuing an injunction to get them to stop. Will that stop them? Probably not, but maybe, just maybe, you'll win a stunning, moral and hopefully legal victory against these scum and ride the media attention to promote your brand/company/domain, etc.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$Beware, however: because spammers are already some of the most desperate losers^Wpeople on earth, they might seek "revenge" for any actions you take against them.
A general "what is spam and why should you hate it with every fibre of your being" page on all your domains would help educate the "unwashed masses", and nothing hampers spam like education. ;-)
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Good answer, and FWIW, here's some more detail for interested parties: a mail server that simply forward emails (without authorization) is typically called an "open relay"; these days, they are considered a black mark on any organization that runs one without a reasonable "excuse".
A friend of mine had an idea which would make the whole thing simpler. Instead of sending email directly to the recipient, only a notice "you have mail from [real name]" (and perhaps a subject), much like an SMS or instant message, and if the recipient chooses to read the mail, it is fetched (similar to POP3). Here's the catch: it costs 'x' to send an email; if the recipient opens the mail (that is, if they receive the special notice, and they decide to actually fetch the message), the cost to the sender is refunded by the MTA owner. This way, spammers cannot afford to send millions of mails at a time, without first assuring some sort of affordability based on response to the mails (which should be dismal these days). ISPs or services running bulk mail could all just agree to institute this pay scheme (bulk mails have a "deposit"); they could even decline deposits on single emails (to allow "real" users -- individuals who are not trying to game the email system for business purposes -- to correspond unhampered). Of course, the rates, and policies could be adjusted for reality. And it's not an "email tax" -- it's some sort of "deposit" that is "refundable" (the point is to make it unreasonably costly to send unreasonably large quantities of the same email (i.e. SPAM)).