While it would be great if the authors of spam, insecure operating systems etc. would die horrible deaths, there are some facts not to be forgotten.

When you run a mail server, you know what IP the connection for inbound mail comes from, and if it does not match the HELO greeting of the client, best practise is to put the IP in a header line of the mail.

So Yahoo does not know more about a specific mail than what you can read out of the complete headers if you know how to interpret them.

And all those security problems are pretty strong incentives to switch.

I'm sure there are lots of more interesting things to do than trying to fight worm and virus-problems on a notoriously insecure platform you don't even use in the first place.

I am not sure how more specific one can get. I traced this sender all the way to france and learned the supervisors name who handles this type of problem but so far have not heard back from her. Dynamic IP's or not you can Isolate a block of IP's being used and who is assigned that block and what server is sending them out, in this case it is the RIPE server in France. I even have their street address. Does me no good.

With my Yahoo mail, all emails are scanned for viruses and you are warned before you download them. Are you using some 3rd party hack to download emails from Yahoo's webmail which might be bypassing this?

Just in case you're new to this.. Contacting ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, or LANIC generally won't do you any good with SPAM/virus emails, as they are the mechanism for IP range registration for corporations/ISP/etc (the ones who are closer to ultimate responsibility). But using their websites to try and track down the group that manages the IPs will sometimes get you a phone number or an email address of that ISP/Corp/etc.

Just a warning, don't expect miracles. Over the last couple years I've sent hundreds and hundreds of emails to these groups and I've heard back from MAYBE .75%. It's sad but true. Anyway, if you can read the header for the TRUE source of the emails, then here are some pertinent website to use to search for the source of the IPs.

ARIN (North America)
APNIC (Asia/Pacific Rim)
RIPE (Europe/Africa/Eastern Europe)
LANIC (Latin America/South America)
KRNIC (Korea)


An example of a Yahoo spam:

The only thing I can trust in the headers above is the one in bold, because this is what the yahoo mail server received directly. Anything before that could easily be forged.

So, looking up the IP "217.137.87.100" in ARIN tells me that it's part of RIPE, so I go to the RIPE website and look it up again. RIPE tells me that it comes from a computer under the care of NTL Internet in England. Probably they are an ISP and probably they have a user with a compromised PC. If I were to contact anyone, it would be them to start with.

http://www.ripe.net/whois?form_type=..._search=Search

Hope this helps someone..

I can only say that SPAM/Viruses are such an pandemic that there's NO way Yahoo could trace them all. I use one yahoo account for anything I think I might get spam in. Currently in that account I have ~5300 emails. 100% of which is SPAM/virus emails. This is accumulated over 1 month! I might be an extreme case, but Yahoo provides free email service for millions of people there's just no way they have the resources (man-power/cash/time) to chase all these down.

I think I see your point. I appreciate all the feedback and will need time to absorb it all. Thx, I just wanted to make a difference.

nice speech

hope Xd doesn't come after me next :)
just wanted to throw some humor into this fray.

Hey Xd...You already have made a difference! You got us all discussing the issue at hand. That in itself is way more than most people will even give in regards to this issue. Hopefully a few geniuses here can knock some brains together and maybe we'll see some form of results. Maybe not. But the point is, you said you wanted to make a difference...and already you have. Thank's for the effort that most people don't put forth.

Write/call/email/visit your politicians. Encourage them to create legislation that demands OPT-IN for (U)BE, not the currently drafted opt-out crap, which is worthless.. ANd then laugh long and hard at Microsoft for getting into the anti-spyware & anti-virus business.
Hypocrites.
Thanks for the viagra spam, Balmer. Sheesh.

Yahoo sent me only 2 responses. Of the 3 seperate complaints I submitted the responses were an exact duplicate of one another although some of the virus attachments were included (2) as most common, I sent reports on several varying types that I most often receive. I have already read and followed these instructions and forwarded the mail to Yahoo to trace complete with full headers. Now comes the time to see if any effort to make a difference really matters at all. For those interested here is the standard Yahoo response for a virus attack complaint:

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.

Mass distribution of unsolicited email messages (or "spamming")
violates
the Yahoo! Terms of Service (TOS).

Please include the following in your report of email abuse to assist us
in a prompt and full investigation:

1. Original subject line -- Please forward the email with a subject
identical to the original subject.

2. Complete headers -- Email programs often display abbreviated
headers. To learn how to display the full headers in a Yahoo! Mail
account, please visit the Yahoo! Mail Help Desk at:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/c...config-11.html

If you are using a different client to read your email, please consult
your email program's help system for more information on viewing full
headers.

3. Complete message body -- Please include the complete, unedited
content of the email message in question. Please do not change or edit
the message in any way.

If reports of email abuse are missing any one of these three items, it
may take longer for the Yahoo! Mail Abuse Team to properly investigate
and take appropriate action. We appreciate your efforts in reporting
this abuse to Yahoo!. At this time, we will need you to forward a copy
of the message, as opposed to sending it as an attachment. Due to
security purposes, our custom messaging system is unable to access
attachments.

There are many viruses in existence today (often called "worms"), that
propagate when an email attachment containing the virus is sent to an
email address found in an infected user's computer (e.g., address book,
local files, etc.). In cases such as these, Yahoo! users may receive
one
or more emails with an attachment that indicates the email has been
sent
from sent from your own or another Yahoo! account, when in reality, it
most likely was not.

Yahoo! Mail is a web-based email system. Your email messages, address
book and other account information are stored on Yahoo!'s servers,
rather than on your computer. Because most viruses infect your local
computer, it is very unlikely that the virus would propogate through a
Yahoo! Mail account.

Currently, the most reported worm viruses as described above are the
W32.Beagle.J@mm/W32/Bagle.j@mm ("Beagle") and W32.Netsky.D@mm
("Netsky")or viruses. If you have received a suspicious email that you
think may contain either the Beagle or Netsky virus, please review the
appropriate web page listed below for further information:

Beagle

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...agle.j@mm.html


Netsky

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...tsky.d@mm.html


Please be aware that because Yahoo! Mail is web-based, simply viewing
your email messages in Yahoo! Mail does not make your computer
vulnerable to computer viruses. In addition, attachments sent along
with
email are not a threat to your system if you do not download them.
However, if you choose to download an attachment by either opening it
or
saving it to your computer, your computer does then become vulnerable
to
computer viruses. The same is true of all files you download to your
computer, whether email attachments or not.

Please note that there is a risk involved whenever downloading email
attachments to your computer or sending email attachments to others. As
stated in the Yahoo! Terms of Service, neither Yahoo! nor its licensors
are responsible for any damages caused by your decision to do so. The
Yahoo! Mail Abuse team recommends that you never download files from an
unknown source.

As a further precaution, we recommend that you choose to scan your
attachments whenever this option is available. Following these
suggestions will greatly reduce your likelihood of experiencing trouble
from computer viruses.

If you believe you have a virus on your system, we recommend that you
install an anti-virus program and contact your computer's user support
group for assistance. You can also search the virus encyclopedia at:

http://www.symantec.com/


Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.


Regards,

Gwen

Yahoo! Customer Care

Here is the response from Yahoo concerning all of my proof as to who this sender is. Remember I already know who it is and have proved it to Yahoo. What will/can Yahoo do? Nothing, the frutrating adage is right. Shame on me for thinking there was a fair and honest way to address the issue. Yahoo is riding a thin line of legality because they are essentially the middle man, they are virus traffickers. They are perpetuating the delivery of virus attacks to business/homes every second of the day to everywhere in the world and then playing dumb. Try and tell that to a cop when you get caught giving a bag of crack to somebody as a favor for someone else. Tell the judge, like Yahoo, I just deliver the package, how does that make me guilty?


Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.

After careful investigation of the information you have provided to me,
I have found that the email you received did not derive from the Yahoo!
Mail system.

This scenario is very common when viruses are involved. Viruses are
programmed to perform malicious activity, and unfortunately, email can
be forged to appear to be coming from a particular email address when
in
reality it is not.

If you are concerned that your computer has been infected with a virus,
my recommendation is to update your virus protection software and then
proceed to scan your computer. If your virus protection software
states
that your system is clean, your own address book should be safe from
viruses accessing it.

Please know that Yahoo! Mail has implemented aggressive anti-virus
measures to protect our users from spreading viruses. We have employed
virus scanning on all inbound and outbound attachments to detect
viruses
immediately and prevent them from spreading any further.

The email message itself does contain some information relating to the
sender's identity. Yahoo! includes the originating Internet Protocol
(IP) address in the full Internet headers of all messages sent through
Yahoo! Mail so that we will have information regarding the origin of
messages sent through our system. The originating IP address should be
located in the very last "Received" line of the full headers and
corresponds to the sender's Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Please see the following URL for more assistance:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/spam/spam-05.html

Once you have identified the IP address, you can conduct an IP lookup
to
determine which ISP provides this person with Internet access. One such
lookup tool you may want to try is:

http://www.arin.net/whois/index.html

You can then attempt to contact that ISP to see if there is any
information they can provide to you.

Filters automatically sort your incoming messages into the folders of
your choice, according to rules that you set up. The benefit of filters
is that you don't need to read through each message to decide where it
goes. For example, you could create a filter so that messages from your
family members are automatically delivered to a personal folder called
"Family".

To create, edit, or delete a filter, follow these steps:

1. Click the "Mail Options" link on the top right-hand navigation
bar.
2. Click "Filters".

To create a new filter from the "Filters" page, do the following:

1. Click the "Add" button.
2. Choose the field you want to match in the incoming message. For
example:

From
To
Subject
Body

3. Choose the criterion by which you want a match to be made. For
example:

contains
does not contain
begins with
ends with

4. Enter the text string to compare. For example:

@rocketmail.com
Love
InfoBeat

5. Choose the destination folder to which you would like the message
sent. For example:

Trash
or any folder you have already created

6. If the above steps have allowed you to enter enough information,
click the "Add Filter" button to put your new filter into effect.

Your account can contain up to 15 filters at one time.

To edit or delete an existing filter from the "Filters" page, follow
these steps:

1. To edit one of your filters, select the filter you would like to
edit and click the "Edit" button.
2. To delete one of your filters, select the filter you would like
to
delete and click the "Delete" button.
3. If you have more than one filter, you will also see one or two
buttons ("up", "down"). Use these buttons to choose the order of your
new filter within your existing filters. Filter order is important
because Filter 1 will be the first filter applied to an incoming
message. Filter 2 will be the next, and so on, until a match is made or
all filters are passed. If no filters match an incoming message, it
will
be delivered to your Inbox.

* SpamGuard

Yahoo! Mail automatically blocks unsolicited email (commonly known as
"spam") from known bulk emailers. This service doesn't guarantee that
we
can catch all unsolicited email, but we'll sure try.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

Earl

Yahoo! Customer Care
http://www.yahoo.com/

My own logic prevailed to contact the supervisor of this RIPE server in France. So I did that first before contacting Yahoo. As of yet, 2 weeks, I have heard nothing back. The other response was a complete duplicate of this one only it was signed Walter. Why even bother changing the names? Another obvious AUTOMATED response...

Yahoo contact methods?
 

http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/mail/cgi_feedback

This is the address for one of the general feedback forms that yahoo currently uses.

It appears to be the primary method yahoo uses for contact.
It is apparently one of the only ways if not the only way to contact them regarding your issues. I searched my pee diddly scooterific self to the nub to find this. Good luck.