FARK.com: (6834859) Zombie Prodigy.net email accounts can awake from the dead to vomit spam all over the internet

		Zombie Prodigy.net email accounts can awake from the dead to vomit spam all over the internet (startribune.com)		13
		More: Amusing, spam

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2160 clicks; posted to Geek » on 21 Dec 2011 at 1:27 PM | Favorite | share:

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13 Comments (+0 »)

mootmah

2011-12-21 11:35:00 AM

There's a joke in here somewhere about ASCII PrOn.

Ennuipoet

2011-12-21 11:45:11 AM

I'm going to show my ignorance here, but if there mail servers don't exist anymore how is this even possible?

Diogenes

2011-12-21 11:52:36 AM

Hehe. My first internet service provider.

nekom

2011-12-21 12:28:01 PM

Ennuipoet: I'm going to show my ignorance here, but if there mail servers don't exist anymore how is this even possible?

Since prodigy.net now directs (web anyway) to AT&T, my guess would be that e-mail goes there too.

Lucky LaRue

2011-12-21 01:33:31 PM

Diogenes: Hehe. My first internet service provider.

Treygreen13

2011-12-21 01:34:34 PM

Diogenes: Hehe. My first internet service provider.

I remember doing the caption contests and playing some MuD on Prodigy. Good times.

Diogenes

2011-12-21 01:39:11 PM

Treygreen13: Diogenes: Hehe. My first internet service provider.

I remember doing the caption contests and playing some MuD on Prodigy. Good times.

Didn't it ultimately get absorbed by Compuserve?

Splinshints

2011-12-21 02:49:04 PM

Ennuipoet: I'm going to show my ignorance here, but if there mail servers don't exist anymore how is this even possible?

They're not actually sending it from a Prodigy account, I assume they're just putting the old Prodigy email address in the From: field of the spam they send. And presumably they stole the person's contact list as well.

Barring any extra validity checks by the receiving mail server, the only field in an email that actually has to be correct for a successful delivery is at least one valid email address in either To: Cc: or Bcc:. Everything else can be complete garbage.

Although it does throw into question the quality of the recipients' mail servers that their ISPs provide. There are some pretty basic things that could be done to put a stop to this quite easily.

Treygreen13

2011-12-21 03:04:57 PM

Diogenes: Treygreen13: Diogenes: Hehe. My first internet service provider.

I remember doing the caption contests and playing some MuD on Prodigy. Good times.

Didn't it ultimately get absorbed by Compuserve?

I don't recall. I believe I had moved on to AOL before it folded, but it has been quite a while.

Russ1642

2011-12-21 05:07:14 PM

So I should filter spam now? I've been diligently reading every V14gR@ email I get and replying with "no, but thanks for the offer".

Equilibrist

2011-12-21 05:46:57 PM

I saw this same thing a couple of months ago. I needed to log into a 14 year old Earthlink account to retrieve a response from Ebay (did I mention I've been online for awhile). Haven't used this account since 2000. Noticed that the inbox was crammed with bouncebacks from my old address book. Apparently compromised and Earthlink never noticed for ten years.

Changed the password from ''password" and everything's dandy

downstairs

2011-12-21 06:50:21 PM

Diogenes: Hehe. My first internet service provider.

Same here. I don't remember much about it, moved on to Netcom because they had the "real" internet.

UNC_Samurai

2011-12-21 09:59:29 PM

nekom: Ennuipoet: I'm going to show my ignorance here, but if there mail servers don't exist anymore how is this even possible?

Since prodigy.net now directs (web anyway) to AT&T, my guess would be that e-mail goes there too.

And progidy.com.mx redirects to TelMex.

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