How do these bots bots detect me?

[slickrcbd]

I'm having trouble getting Remote Assistance to work with either Vista 64 Home Premium or XP Pro under Virtual PC, so I thought I'd try the MSN messenger approach to starting a session with my cousin who is 45 minutes away. I've never used MSN messenger before, although I did try using it many years ago when XP was new and preferred AIM, which I've been using since 1997. Anyways, as soon as I signed on for the first time in AT LEAST 6 years and a completely new computer, I got hit with four notices that various people wanted to add me to their contact list.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/1073601...26593/sizes/o/







Given that I've never heard of any of them, I assume it's some kind of bot that monitors for new people and asks for permission to spam them. Any idea how that got intercepted, and how do I prevent this? This is a pretty clean install of Windows XP Pro on a virtual machine, and I've NEVER entered my account data into the machine prior to today. Nor have I used MSN messenger on this computer before today.



MSN messenger was at whatever the Service Pack 2 installer sets the default settings to as I haven't played around with anything prior to making this post.



So, what steps should I take to stop this kind of thing? I never had this problem with AIM unless I went into a chat. Certainly not from just signing in as I did using my old Hotmail address.

[amon91]

Well, sometimes bots just add a massive amount of addresses, not specifically you. I'm not exactly sure how they work but I know they can find your email if it's anywhere on the web. That's why many people don't post their emails publicly, they don't want spammers to pick those addresses up.



I get that stuff once in a while and I don't mind at all, I just block them.

[slickrcbd]

Well, sometimes bots just add a massive amount of addresses, not specifically you. I'm not exactly sure how they work but I know they can find your email if it's anywhere on the web. That's why many people don't post their emails publicly, they don't want spammers to pick those addresses up.



I get that stuff once in a while and I don't mind at all, I just block them.

Well, there's a reason I only use that hotmail account for signups these days. I learned the hard way about not posting your address on Usenet over a decade ago when Hotmail was "the world's first FREE web-based e-mail". This was before Microsoft bought Hotmail, heck before I had dial-up internet access at home.



In my defense, I was just learning about the internet as a teenager when I had very limited access at school and had just discovered Usenet. I may have been a computer geek, but my mother wouldn't let me hook up a modem to the phone line until almost a year later when I got my first part-time job and could afford a second line.

[Schiffer]

You lucky you only got four, I got over 10 invites as soon as I log-in to my old account.

[c0lin]

Just a suggestion: In the future you should try Teamviewer for remote assistance for family. It's pretty awesome, I use it daily for work but it's free to use for home.