Hi I logged on to my Gmail account this morning, and found that the vacation setting was on. I thought this was strange, as I hadn't set it, so I opened the settings and found that it was set to send some dodgy mail to anyone who wrote to me, inviting them to meet online and sending a link to some pics (obviously, I didn't click this link). Then I checked my sent messages to see how many people it had been sent to, and found that not only had it been sent to people who wrote to me during the night, but also that a different mail had been sent to a whole list of people whose addresses were all very similar: pers-(then some letters and numbers)@craigslist.org The mail said only "heyy, i think we can fill each others ad :)" - with no link. One person actually replied to this wanting to meet up!!! The subjects headings were replies, like "Re: Fun witty guy Looking - 26 (Central Point)" or "Re: anyone real? - 19", suggesting that they might be replies to dating posts. I do not look at Craigslist.org, and have not looked at any dating posts anywhere. How has this happened from my email address, and how safe am I now? It seems to be back to normal now..... Thanks for any advice you can give. Guy

Scan your PC with an antivirus. You have any antivirus installed on your PC? If I'm helping you and I don't reply within 24 hours send me a PM.

It's probably just spam. EEOC

I would not worry too much, as long as your not getting a lot of messages of undeliverable mail that you did not send out, you should be fine. Before this happened did you by chance log into your email account with an unsecured wireless connection like in a Starbucks coffee shop? Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. ~Mitchell Kapor ~

I would guess that your password is non-complex and attackers got it by brute foce. This seems to be happening (particularly out of China) a lot these days. Change your PW to something complex (more than 8 characters with a special caracter). If you find that funny things are still happening with your account, you have a trojan/keylogger/etc on your computer and a reformat may be the best option if a scan does not pick it up. Process of elimination. :) Good luck. Bill

bill birkholz you r right........generate a good complex password from http://www.freepasswordgenerator.com/ brute force tries all letters with different combinations to get a password of a email...... this is mostly happening in gmail accounts...... ============= hAnSuM KrIsHnA -a bLACK hAT hACKER 'N' -a pRO cRACKER ...........................