CareerBuilder Run Amuck

First, I'm amazed you even tracked down a number to call. Some really big operations out there are really hard to track down in real life. I think my best suggestion would be to just block their email address.

I'd forget the attorney general, and anything of the sort. Unless they happen to be on a major spam campaign, they'll just barely pretend to listen to you, since all you are out is your time and annoyance.

Maybe someone can come up with a better suggestion, but that's mine.

That's what I'd suggest as well. Also, it's entirely possible that those emails are not actually from careerbuilder and are garbled because they contain viruses.

Yes, forging the "from" address is simple and common. You have to look at the message header to dermine the originating mail server.

I've been getting some garbage from them lately, too, e. g. info on jobs I definitely don't want.

The best solution is, set up a filter in your email program that shoves their stuff into the bulk folder. It sounds like their database person may have quit and no one knows the systems. Anyway, that's my guess.

Thank you all.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one.

I'm not sure how to do the filter thing, but will try.

Thanks again!

There should be something in your email instructions where you can click to send something to a spam box or to a bulk folder or the like. The terms aren't the same from system to system but the idea is the same. What email program are you using?

Dupre, What email program do you use. Nearly all of them have a simple way to block an address and if yours doesn't you should get a new one.

Hey, thanks!

Well, the email systsem hooked up to the CareerBuilder.com issue is intersatx.net

The email system on my computer is microsoft Internet Explorer.

So basically, when I want to get the mail from intersatx.net, I just go to their page.

And I use the Internet Explorer with my sbcglobal email.

It's pretty confusing.

But, I just found out this morning that my boyfriend signed up for CareerBuilder emails ... using Internet Explorer. So a Job Alert for him came in through the Internet Explorer. And it's not garbled.

My sbcglobal is also linked up with my yahoo, so that both those addresses come in together.

I'm not sure how I will figure out which email address he used with CareerBuilder.

Geez! He has his own yahoo address, why he used mine, I've yet to discover.

Computers aren't a strong area for me, so your advice is very appreciated.

Thanks!

If I understand you correctly, you are using webmail (i.e. getting your mail through a web site). I am not familiar with interstx.

But, nearly all email websites have a "properties" page where you can set options for your email account. You want to look for the properties page (it might be a link named "options" or "properties) on the webpage you go to to read your email. Where the mail is coming from shouldn't matter.

On the properties page, there almost certainly is an option labeled something like "filters" or "blocking" or maybe "spam blocking". If you go there you should be able to set up a filter for a specific from address.

The key though is to start looking at the webpage where you read the offending messages. Sometimes there is even a "block mail from this address" link on each email.

Good Luck

ebrown_p, thanks for staying with me on this. I do appreciate it.

So, there is something about SPAM blocking, but it's confusing to me. All about "points." I'm clueless.

Here's what they say (cutting and pasting):

Score Value:
Less Points
INCREASE Filter More Points
DECREASE Filter
Set the number of "spam points" a message must score before it is considered spam. If you find you are getting too many false positives (non-spam mail tagged as spam), try increasing this number; if you are getting too many false negatives (spam not tagged as such), try decreasing this number. 5 is the default and fine value for most cases.


Then underneath that, there is a box with this in it:

Add New Address
Address:

Type: Allow Deny
Addresses which send mail that is often incorrectly tagged as spam.
There are "glob" (file expansion) patterns, so
[email protected]

*@somewhere.com

*.somewhere.com
will all work.


So, I mean, they make it sound like you put in an email address if that email address is blocked as spam erroneously.

And somehow, they block all the stuff they think is spam.

And I can't tell if they do notify you of blocked emails so you can tell whether or not blocking that address is wanted or not.


Also, under something called simple headers, it does give things, like orginating email address

Here's some of that:
To: Undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Topic Reply Notification - CareerBuilder Run Amuck
Reply-to: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:11:08 -0700
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: PHP
X-MimeOLE: Produced By phpBB2
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - hamstershack.able2know.com
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - austx.net
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [99 99] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - able2know.com
X-Source:
X-Source-Args:
X-Source-Dir:
X-Virus-Scanned: by InterSAT http://www.intersatx.net
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on mail.intersatx.net
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=4.0 tests=NO_REAL_NAME autolearn=no
version=3.0.4
X-Spam-Level:
Status: R

I've already deleted all the CareerBuilder emails, but can get the simple headers off of the next one.

Can't make much out of the above.


Any thoughts appreciated.

It looks like they have a system whereby their computers "look" through your emails to try to determine if they are spammy. Let's say -- and I'm making up the numbers and rules here, this is just for illustration -- you get an email from [email protected]

The title is Viagra for sale! The message is about buying Viagra.

Looks like your email provider counts the address as, say, 1 point, the title as another and the message as a third, possibly with a traditionally spammy subject like Viagra scoring even more points. Let's say for sake of argument that the message scores a 5.

If you have your filter set to discard as spam everything with a score of 5 or more, this piece of email is discarded. But if your filter is set to discard emails with a score of 6 or more, the email is still sent to you and you have a false negative, e. g. the email is definitely spam but your filter (think of a sieve with not so fine mesh) isn't catching it.

But let's say you also get an email from [email protected] and the subject is Hi there and the body of the email is a letter from a friend. The filter might still award some points to this email, maybe one for the subject line (a common one among spammers), maybe if your friend has sent you a passel of Viagra jokes it gets another point, etc.

Let's say that your friend's email scores a 4. If you have your filter set to 5 or more points, then this email will correctly come through. If your filter is set to 3 or more points, though, it will end up in the bulk folder with the actually spammy emails. This is what's called a false positive. The email has been falsely tagged as spam because your filter is too fine (e. g. the sieve has mesh that's too fine so it's catching even things you don't want it to catch).

This is trial and error and don't expect it to be immediately perfect. Rather, the system has to learn what you want to see and what you don't, so it's best to check your bulk folder no matter how long you've had a filtering system in place, to check, just in case. I just checked my own, FYI, and found one thing in there that wasn't supposed to be there, but lots of spam that was supposed to be in there. I have Yahoo email and have been filtering for at least 2 years. Anyway, the allow/deny decision can be made by you in an effort to refine the filter (sieve). Any emails from your best friend, for example, should come through, even if they're chock ful of Viagra jokes. Any emails from [email protected] (or whatever, an obvious spammer) should go to the bulk folder, no matter what they say.

The headers thing is to identify spammers and send the information to your service provider, who will presumably send it along to the spammers' service providers. This is of dubious value as spammers will just open up another account at a different ISP, but it doesn't hurt. In any event, you probably don't need to do that in order to get the filtering protection.

I hope this helps.

Holy Moly, jespah.

You should get an award or something for that.

Thank you!