The body of the messages is often something like this:

These recipients of your message have been processed by the mail server: tony492@ivillage.com; Failed; 5.1.1 (bad destination mailbox address) Remote MTA 66.28.189.160: SMTP diagnostic: 550 5.1.1 is not a valid mailbox

These messages are a result of either spam or virus messages that have been sent by someone who fakes (spoofs) the header to make it appear as if the email was sent from MY EMAIL ADDRESS.

The response is coming back from the Email Server of the domain to which the email was sent, and they are just indicating that the mail was not delivered, or that it contained spam and was blocked.

Since I know that I did not send the email, I just ignore these emails.

I also get a number of messages from Cox Communications (avops@cox.net)

An email was sent to you that we have identified as containing a virus. Below find the details of the infected message: From: support@singlec.com Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:59:40 -0400 Virus Name: W32/Netsky.p@MM Infected Attachments: 0000014a.EML, /0000014a.EML , /0000014a.EML/0000008d.EML , /message.scr To protect you from destructive Internet viruses, your Cox High Speed Internet service now includes a free anti-virus security enhancement. This security enhancement detects and prevents the delivery of most viruses transmitted via email so that your personal computers will not be harmed. This is an auto-generated message. Please do not reply. For more information on how this security enhancement works, please visit Cox Customer Support at the following location: http://usercenter.cox.net/rsuite/sdcuser/asp/showContent.jsp?sublevel=yes&frameu rl=/sdckb/safety/virus.htm Please note that Cox does not read the content (text) of your email messages. This security enhancement only detects known viruses. This anti-virus security enhancement of your Cox High Speed Internet service is applied when your email comes through our email servers and is intended to provide protection against most identified viruses transmitted via email. In order to complete your anti-virus protection, it is recommend that you install and use PC-based anti-virus software on your PC; this will protect you from viruses transmitted through Web sites, Internet downloads, and via diskettes, portable drives, etc. Cox High Speed Internet's email anti-virus security enhancement will not prevent downloading of virus-infected files, nor will it remove viruses already present on your computer. Sincerely, The Cox High Speed Internet Team

Cox does not catch all of the viruses I am sent, but they do catch a lot of it, and I appreciate their efforts. I find the messages a little annoying, but since I run Spam Inspector, it is easy to get rid of them. I merely highlighted one of the messages and clicked Add Enemy, and told it to just add the avops@cox.net email address, and not the entire domain, and now all of those messages are automatically considered as spam (**SPAM: Email Virus Notification), and they are automatically deleted.

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