Fake CIA email, originating with freepers

[eridani]

I didn't get this--it was posted on another of my newsgroups. Anyone else hear anything about it?

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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 21:55:50 GMT
Subject: Your IP was logged
Importance: Normal
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Message-ID: <[email protected]>
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----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 1:55 PM
Subject: Your IP was logged


Dear Sir/Madam,

we have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.

Important:
Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.


Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison

++++ Central Intelligence Agency -CIA-
++++ Office of Public Affairs
++++ Washington, D.C. 20505

++++ phone: [phone]
++++ 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., US Eastern time

[Oversea Visitor]

1. Make a police report

This is serious stuff.
Who ever having fun with this is stupid.

[Road Scholar]

31. It's illegal as hell!! nt

[walldude]

2. There have been a few threads about this

the FBI posted a warning that it was fake. This is the first that I heard it came from the freeps though... hmmm don't they know posing as a federal officer is a crime?

[kliljedahl]

3. I've received it twice at work

along with my freeper bosses. There was a zip file attached, ostensibly a form to fill out. my Freeper boss opened it and infected his computer. He cannot use his computer now, LOLOL

[Denile_River]

6. I got freeped too!

Hi everyone,
I got the fake FBI e-mail too! It was so obvious! Just delete it!

[Skittles]

10. I don't believe you!

:D

[area51]

21. Welcome.

Welcome to DU, Denile_River.

[Denile_River]

28. Thank you

Thanks for the warm welcome! I hope you all ad a good Turkey Day!

[newyawker99]

27. Hi Denile_River!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Denile_River]

29. Greetings

Thanks all! Its good to be here! :hi:

[MiniMe]

4. Its a virus

Don't open the file. Looking for exact information, but I've been getting these at work from various email addresses.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[e-mail]

edited to add link

[WilliamPitt]

5. This is a virus

[Tab]

7. This traces back to a comcast.net mail account

nowhere near freerepublic.

The only thing weird is the comment "This website is a rightwing website".

But I doubt it originated at FR.

One problem with email is it's easy to spoof email coming from anyone, and if you don't know some of the gritty details, on the surface it looks legit.

Hell, I have multiple (published/associated) email accounts, and it's amusing (well, not really) to see one of my accounts "email" or spam one of my other accounts. Obviously they're not coming from me, but someone has harvested the email addresses and are sending it from one to another (and probably many others under my address). Likewise I get spam from people I know but it's obvious they had nothing to do with it, their address is just being used for cover.

It's like writing a letter - you can put anyone's name and address in the return address section.

That doesn't mean they wrote it or sent it, though.

[AtomicKitten]

8. I have been spammed so bad I've changed my email address.

I found 47 emails in bulk like that, erased them, came back an hour later and there were 12 more.

I do have cable through Comcast.

I would really like to know where this is coming from.

[kevinmc]

9. I've Gotten 2 from the FBI..........

I didn't open them. Also I've been getting "Mail not Delivered" virus email's the past few days. I don't open anything unless I know who it's from.

As for the Freeper connection that was what I was thinking it was all coming from.

[Tab]

12. The "mail not delivered"

is technically legit, but the original mail is not.

What happens is a spammer send out email under your name.

The receiving server gets it, and doesn't accept it, and tells you that your mail was not delivered.

Result: You get all these legitimate notifications that your email was not delivered, but the thing is that you weren't the one sending it out to begin with.

To stay with the "return address" metaphor, someone sends out a bunch of email with your return address, and then everyone writes you to complain or tell you they ignored you.

There's really not much you can do about it, imho. I must get 1000 emails a day at this point, on my different accounts, and it just has grown. Years ago I used to personally trace back each piece of spam, and complain to the ISP; now I just physically wouldn't have enough hours in the day to do it. At some point you just have to tell it to go away. It's like freeway noise - a few noisy trucks in the old days, and you could complain to specific companies if you were so inclined. Get a freeway with constant traffic, and what can you do? You can appeal to a different authority, but you're past the point of addressing each vehicle individually.

[kevinmc]

14. The one's I am getting show through my Virus.......

protection that they are infected.

[JoZbean]

34. Almost correct, but not technically correct

someone sends out a bunch of email with your return address

Actually, the worms will infiltrate an address book and spoof the email addresses. It's part of the 'virus' and not something that someone manually does with 'harvested' email addresses. The virus has built-in programing that randomly selects email addresses out of the infected machine's address book. One of the people that was sent the infected email from 'your' address book will open the attachment and their machine will become infected. The virus code will execute in their address book and the cycle goes on.

It's one way to assure the infected file stays in circulation.

It's always, always best to never ever open attachments from people you don't know and even from people you do know if it's not something you're specifically expecting.

Just added for clarity. Don't mean to step on any toes.

[Road Scholar]

13. I got one from the FBI. Said I had visited 30 illegal websites.

Then wanted me to answer a questionnaire.

[kevinmc]

15. One of the FBI emails I got showed a Virus........

it was the second one I got. I haven't opened any of them.

[kliljedahl]

11. Mine didn't list a particular website

It said "this IP has visited over 30 prohibited websites". But it did have that zip file attached. DO NOT open it, just delete the E-mail.

[banana republican]

16. could this be a "denial of service" attack by FR???

My spam has almost trippled in the past few weeks.

[RebelOne]

17. Here's more info on it from CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/11/22/email.scam.ap/index.html

[Eugene]

18. My antivirus filter identifies it as the Sober worm.

Clam AV on my mail server called it Sober.U.
Norton AV calls it W32.Sober.X.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

19. Part of a big Sober outbreak.

We're getting hit at work as well.

[mtnester]

20. Virus warning, also appears to come from FBI, CIA, and projected

to also mutate to FEMA, DHA and NSA, as well as other federal state or local agencies. The accompanying attachments a zip file and has the word "list" in it, either alone or with a combination of numbers and letters.

Can I PLEASE have 5 minutes alone in a room with virii and malware/spyware/adware creators? Also hoax emailers? I will settle for 1.5 minutes. I will be unarmed, and I promise not to kill them. I also promise they will cease and desist.

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. I've been getting tons of this spam in the last three days.

Atleast 25 emails were addressed from the fbi or cia.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

23. lol, i'm sure the cia uses lots of exclamation points in their letters!

:silly:

[unhappycamper]

24. snopes.com is your friend

Here's info on the FBI variant:
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/fbi.asp

[MrBenchley]

25. Wow....that IS pathetic

even for the freepers.

[Rich Hunt]

26. yeah, I got one, too

I can't remember what the headers said in mine, but it was from inside the US, unlike other dumb spam and forgeries I get.

[jmowreader]

30. The FR thread it references is very strange

No liberal would have ever chosen this particular thread to include in a virus he created. All the messages on it have a tag "Threat Matrix - Daily Terror Threat" but none of the messages are terror threats. It almost looks like a DU Lounge thread...some stuff about a woman's breast biopsy, a message from the Zapatistas none of them can figure out, just really strange stuff to claim as proof that FR is a "rightwingnut" website. Trust me on this: there are lots of "kill all the liberals" threads over there that a liberal could point to in proof that FR's a wingnut site.

If anyone of a particular political leaning created the virus, it's a conservative.

However, I think someone fifteen years old who thinks causing a couple billion in damage and getting his name in all the papers is kewl created the damn thing.

[lakemonster11]

32. I think it's truly sad that you can almost always tell

virus emails are fake because of the spelling, grammar, and style errors.

It seems like if you were going to take the time to create a computer virus, you would actually put some effort into the email that's supposed to trick people into getting infected (not that I know why anyone would get some sort of sick thrill out of causing numerous problems for a lot of other people that they don't even know by creating such a virus in the first place :mad:).

[lonestarnot]

33. Rugh Ro ... impending doom and bird flu "virus" spread by "internets"