....of email address(es).
Help!!
We have email addresses and so on in the family name. Just after my husband died a renewal email came through so we renewed for the next five years. Last Tuesday emails using this address stopped arriving (there are about 6 people using the xx@xxxxxxxx.net).
We spent a little while delving into husbands email account to see if we could find out why, without success and as yet have had no reply from the company we bought the name from.
This morning I have had a call from a friend warning that he had received 3 suspect emails from that address today.
We use Macs if that has any relevance!
Wondered if husband had some hosting site we cannot find as yet?
Any ideas of where I go from here to retrieve my address and prevent further spam going out in my name? We really want to keep the address a. having paid for it b. everyone from education onwards send stuff to it.
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Dee, if @nnnnnnn.net where nnnnnnn is your family name, yes your husband had paid for a hosted account.
Who did the renewal come from?
If you want, send me an email via the mods with your hijacked email address I I can find out who owns it.
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Possibly not a fully hosted account - I have my own domain which has email forwarding as a feature - so my email address is the same for everyone, and I don't have to notify changes of email address if I were to change my ISP.
One year my ownership of the domain expired and it took quite some time to get it back. One can grab an unused domain for a short period (5 or 10 days) then releases it back for free. So when domains drop off from being used, there are companies who hoover them up and just temporarily host them to see if it generates a lot of traffic and therefore has a value.
My domain did the rounds of a few of these companies (which are all over the place) with me checking daily and one day it happened to be free again so I grabbed it back - and now have it on auto renewal so I don;t lose it again.
I did a lot of research at the time to find out what was going on and there is terminology etc around all this, but I can't remember it all now. I may have done a thread on the other place about it.
While it might be handy to know who currently owns it, what you really nee to be doing is going to one of the sites where you can buy the domain (I use www.1and1.co.uk) and just type in the required domain name to see if it is available - and when it is, snap it up. I did try contacting one of the temporary owners to see if I could buy it from them (as I think they are motivated solely by money) but no reply.
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Mind you, when did the 5 year renewal expire? If it hasn't expired then it could just be someone spoofing your email address - one of my daughters currently has this, sending out emails which link to (mainly Russian) sites offering cheap Windows software - but the sites themselves have malicious code (as reported by Chrome).
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Wasn't there a famous incident when Microsoft forgot to renew the 'hotmail' domain?
I read something about it, but then as now, I don't understand what it's all about.
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I remember that! I think some linux company renewed it for them then gave it back :-)
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>> Wasn't there a famous incident when Microsoft forgot to renew the 'hotmail' domain?
>>
>> I read something about it, but then as now, I don't understand what it's all
>> about.
>>
Here's the story..... www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/06/microsoft_forgets_to_renew_hotmail/
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Easiest way to find out is to open a terminal window on your mac and type whois xxx.net and it should give you full details of who owns the domain and when it is registered until.
The suspect emails might be spoofed ones. Your friend would have to check the email headers to find out where it really came from.
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This web page www.whois.sc/ gives the full detail of ownership.
Here is one guy's account of getting a domain name after expiry. www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/03/how-to-snatch-an-expiring-domain. I thought about using the type of service he's used when I had the problem but decided that someone would be lining their pockets at my expense.
But the more I think about this the more it sounds like simple email spoofing, possibly cause by a trojan/virus.
Last edited by: smokie on Thu 30 Sep 10 at 07:58
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>> Mind you, when did the 5 year renewal expire?
>>
Looking back at Dee's posts, her husband was in intensive care in July this year.
>> But the more I think about this the more it sounds like simple email spoofing,
>> possibly cause by a trojan/virus.
>>
How does that fit with the OP stating " Last Tuesday emails using this address stopped arriving (there are about 6 people using the xx@xxxxxxxx.net). " ?
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Good detective work. Need the answers from Dee I think - particularly around renewal/expiry dates.
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>> Good detective work.
>>
not really. I remembered Deepwith posting about her website problem and later posting about her husband being in intensive care. I thought Dee may be Deepwith and looked up if that was the case.
Dee - I am saddened to know that your husband did not win his struggle in ICU, and you have my deepest sympathy. We are strangers but it seems I have known your family for years from your posts on HJ's forum.
It is good sign that you are able to mention your loss and ask for help on this forum, even though matters like sorting email accounts may seem insignificant in the overall impact on your life.
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Possible takeover ... - Zero
