I'm getting infected mails...

[Patrick Y.]

Hi everyone,

I'm getting quite a few mail containing viruses in my account. I'm quite sure it's the same person. However, that person seems to be using a different identity every time he or she sends me a mail, which I'm unable to block. Anyway, can someone give me some tips on how to track down the person or do something to make he or she stop. I'm fairly to new to all these stuff. Thanks.

[Darius Wey]

In all honesty, no amount of tracking will rid you of this spam/infected mail. I get hundreds each day, most of them filtered thanks to a few mechanisms. The first being server-side filtering on my IMAP account; something like SpamAssassin. The second being client-side filtering, such as ThunderBird, which has an awesome adaptive junk mail filter. The third is a background anti-virus client designed to sniff out any harmful email. Depending on your type of email account, you might have the ability to configure it server-side. If not, then set up a client-side filter and an AV client which handles mail.

[Janak Parekh]

However, that person seems to be using a different identity every time he or she sends me a mail, which I'm unable to block.
It's not the person necessarily -- viruses mask their From identity to make it harder to block by design. It's occasionally trackable by reading the headers closely and finding the originating IP of the spam, but it's not generally solvable at this time, and Darius outlines the best techniques for handling it.

--janak

[Patrick Y.]

What exactly is a header? How do you view the header? I'm using Yahoo. Also, do you know any good tutorials on these kind of stuff? Thanks.

[Patrick Y.]

To Darius, thank you. I will try the ways you provided.

[Typhoon]

To Darius, thank you. I will try the ways you provided.

I'm just curious. Did you tick someone off? Or is he/she just being an idiot? Or both? It has happened to me before...I hate those people.

[Janak Parekh]

What exactly is a header? How do you view the header? I'm using Yahoo. Also, do you know any good tutorials on these kind of stuff? Thanks.
I don't use Yahoo, so I don't know how to do it, but there's typically a button or link somewhere to see "entire email with headers" or somesuch. If you've never read email headers before, though, you probably won't find it very helpful.

I'm just curious. Did you tick someone off? Or is he/she just being an idiot? Or both? It has happened to me before...I hate those people.
It's rarely that. Most likely, there's an acquaintance who opened an attachment and got infected with a virus.

--janak

[Sven Johannsen]

There's been a real rash of this cr@p going around. I don't think it is anyone you've particularly ticked off. Just an annoying virus that is pumping itself out from infected PCs.