Very well said Lou
 That is exactly what I just told Paul and Marie in a private email to them.
No one is immune to spoofing! And no virus protection will detect it because it isn't a virus, it is a hacker faking a email address.

But on the chance his email has been hacked, I suggested to Paul to change his password.

Look at 99% of the spam emails we all get, you really think that is the real sender? NOT! They are spoofed email addresses, who happen to be real email addresses and someone will get accused of something they didn't do.

No one is immune to spoofed email address, NO ONE! And I might add, even a email list server can be hacked into to harvest good email addresses and or even be the generator of a spoofed email. I am not saying that is the case here, just saying hackers are crafty nasty people and they don't care who they hurt in the process. You can thank the script kiddies who's many parents aren't watching them on the computers to be sure they aren't up to no good lol. And yes, we know from experince that it is many a child who is doing much of the computer hacking on the internet. Hence the name " Script kiddies"

There are far to many variables to know if an email was spoofed or not. Only a good ISP will track down a spoofed email and deal with that hacker!

A word of advice to everyone. Before going public with such a statement. Please forward all nasty emails to that senders ISP. The ISP will with enough complaints trace down the sender and deal with them as they see fit. If it is their customer who is the sender, that ISP will close that customers account down.
 If it is a spoofed email, the ISP's can tell by looking at the code and know it was a spoofed email and no action will be taken against the customer.

Abuse@ so and so .com or .net or spoof@ so and so .com or .net or whatever, is often the address to forward such emails to so they can deal with it. Lets stop dealing with this in public, it should have never been made public to start with unless it was proven he was the original sender.

Plus, this is a G E N E A L O G Y email list, not the complaint list. So it is off topic for all of us to even reply to this topic lol. Sorry Va list hosts! I said my 2 cents worth.

Now, on to real genealogy! lol
Researching all Lock(e)'s of Virginia
Don

-------------- Original message --------------

> Since this subject has come up this a.m., and no one has mentioned the
> following explanation, I will offer...
>
> There's a thing called "spoofing" going on with emails where a
> disreputable character can send an email from his/her computer with
> the "sent from" address line showing the valid address of a perfectly
> innocent person. It's sort of akin to "identity theft" in the email
> world. Such a message can be deciphered by a competent technician to
> get some clues as to where it actually originated, but my experience
> is that few will go to the trouble.
>
> I know about this because it has happened to me - someone used my
> email address, and on multiple occasions. A search for the term
> "spoofing" on the Internet will confirm the existence of this
> technique and more detailed information. You will receive a number of
> valid "hits" if you do such a search on Google. One of the sites
> explaining the phenomena is here:
>
> http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/email_spoofing.html
>
> Paul, my guess is that your address has been spoofed. Marie, I think
> you're the victim of such a spoofed email.
>
> Lou Poole, Richardson, TX
>
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