Forging my Fastmail address

[jkc054]

Someone is forging my Fastmail address and sending emails to that address which appear to come from my address. Fastmail support is indicating that there is nothing they can do and nothing I can do except delete them. I am very frustrated. Any suggestions?

I have been also getting phishing emails and again short of deleting them Fastmail support is indicating there is nothing I can do except delete them.

[BritTim]

Unless the forged emails are coming from Fastmail's servers (which presumably they are not) this is not under Fastmail's control. If you can tell from the raw message where the forged messages are coming from, you might be able to contact that service to report the abuse. However, in most cases, either the source is unclear, or the messages are being sent from many different hacked computers.

You can reduce the pain somewhat by discarding backscatter. See Settings->Spam Protection->Advanced preferences

[jkc054]

I just checked my Spam Learned count. It was about 201 the last time I checked which was a day or two ago and now for some reason it dropped to 196. How and why did this happen? I just asked Fastmail support and waiting for their answer. Both times I checked it from my laptop using Firefox if that makes any difference.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by jkc054

I just checked my Spam Learned count. It was about 201 the last time I checked which was a day or two ago and now for some reason it dropped to 196. How and why did this happen?

You probably marked 5 messages (which were received during a previous day) in your Spam folder as Not Spam.

• The counts reported in the Settings>Spam Protection>Personal Spam Filter area will immediately change if you mark a message which was received over a day ago in the Spam folder as Not Spam.
• The reason I added "received over a day ago" is that messages which arrive in a folder automatically (by the Sieve rules system) are not learned as spam or not-spam until you account is automatically scanned each day. You can see the automatic features which occur at scan time (spam learning and auto-purge) in the Settings>Folders settings for each folder.
• Use of the Report Spam or Not Spam buttons affects the learned message counts immediately, depending on the learned state of that message. Let's say that your account is scanned automatically at 2 AM your local time each night. If your Inbox folder is set to learn as not spam and the Spam folder is set to learn as spam, here is an example.
  • You read your email at 9 AM and note that the Spam learned count was 201 and the Non-Spam learned count was 1000. Let's say 5 messages arrive between 10 AM and 3 PM and are all auto-filed into the Spam folder by the spam filter (or some other rule).
  • You read your email at 4 PM and note that the Spam learned count is still 201 and the Non-Spam learned count is still 1000, since the nightly auto-scan has not yet run. You go to the Spam folder and find that the 5 messages which arrived during the day were false positives (good messages), so you mark them as Not Spam and they automatically move to your Inbox. Since those 5 messages had not yet been scanned, they had not been learned until your action (using the Not Spam button) moved them to the Inbox. So this manual action will immediately change your Non-Spam learned count to 1005 without affecting your Spam learned count.
  • Instead of the above scenario, you instead read your email at 8 AM the following day (after your account has been auto-scanned overnight). and note that the Spam learned count was 201 and the Non-Spam learned count was 1000. You go to the Spam folder and find that the 5 messages which arrived during the previous day (before the account scan) are all false positives, so you mark them as Not Spam and they automatically move to your Inbox. You then check your spam learning counts. Since those messages had been learned as spam during the overnight auto-scan, the Spam learned count is immediately reduced to 196 and the Non-Spam learned count is increased to 1005.

I think this is how it works (after I made some tests to verify most of my statements above). The learned message counts change automatically during the daily scan, and the manual spam reporting buttons immediately change the learned message counts depending on whether the messages you report have already been learned. It's a bit complex but it works just as you would expect it to once you understand the daily scan and that your manual reports can change the counts.


Bil

[jkc054]

I determined what happened. I marked 6 messages in my Inbox as spam and it automatically moved them to my Spam folder and my Spam Learned count went from 196 to 202. When I moved those 6 messages from the Spam folder to the forwebmaster folder (at the request of Fastmail support) the Spam Learned count dropped down to 196. I just moved them back to the Spam folder and the Spam Learned counted went back up to 202! Is this to be expected?

How long do they stay in the Spam folder before they are automatically removed?

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by jkc054

I determined what happened. I marked 6 messages in my Inbox as spam and it automatically moved them to my Spam folder and my Spam Learned count went from 196 to 202. When I moved those 6 messages from the Spam folder to the forwebmaster folder (at the request of Fastmail support) the Spam Learned count dropped down to 196. I just moved them back to the Spam folder and the Spam Learned counted went back up to 202! Is this to be expected?

How long do they stay in the Spam folder before they are automatically removed?

Yes, moving messages to or from the Spam folder has the same effect as using the Report Spam and Not Spam buttons - these actions immediately change your spam learning. Go to Settings>Folders and check the folder properties. You can choose to auto-purge from any folder, and you have control over the time interval. You need to leave messages in folders which are learning spam for at least one day before deleting them.

Anyone can spoof your From name and/or email address. They can send those fake messages to you and to others. All FastMail can do is to prevent their system being used for the forgery.

Bill