msmith,

I, too, have "just" started to get spam, I think its in Italian, or maybe French, from someone who wants me to do "something" for them, and one more for a "mortgage loan" approval thingy...

From what I can tell, they are just trying to "ping" people for responses; since the contact list on these emails appears to be sent to any "user account"@myISP.com -=- it sounds like they are simply sending a "blanket" email to anyone, and looking for a reply to determine if they sent to an actual valid email account.

In situations like this, I either, one, block the sender/subject in my email, or, two, don't respond to them and delete the email. It should also be noted, that, when dealing with "public" message boards, if they attach your email addy to your post, when you post, (in some Windows newsgroups, this is the case), you should create a "fake" email addy to attach with... Common addys I have seen are: [email protected], or [email protected] -=- this practice, and knowing the newsgroup/forum, that you frequent, doesn't go and sell your email addy out, is about the strongest ally I have seen. I have even seen people go as far as getting a "dummy" email account that is given out, and a "working" email account that is only let out to "known" people. But, even then, I have heard these people can still get "junk" email in there "trusted" account. In some of the documentation, or man pages, I have seen email addys for "contact" people, written like someone at someserver dot com, which makes "stripping" an email addy manually required, not sure if this works, or not. I just think, you can't win, and it is only a matter of time before they "find" you.

I have had this problem in Windows, and now, in Knoppix - but I think my ISP is giving out my addy, for a price, IMHO...

Hope this helps,
Ms. Cuddles