Hey everyone,

Remember last week (around Feb 5), when those wierd emails showed up
from me and I thought my mail server had been cracked? Well, now I'm not
so sure. I was looking over the logs again, to try and puzzle out what
happened, and I realized something. All the entries showing an Internet
IP address logging into my mail server were ME! I forgot that I had my
pop server address listed as sildara.dyndns.org, and that FQDN resolves
to my own static IP address. At first I didn't catch it, but then I
realized, that there is no way someone could spoof their address to be
the same as mine. Also, the connections were occurring at ten-minute
intervals, the interval at which Evolution checks all my accounts. So,
my own TCP packets were going out through my DSL router looking for my
own static IP address. As soon as they hit the router's external
interface with that IP address, they were NAT'd back into my LAN server
by the router and checking my email.

All this, of course, still does not explain the strange messages that
almost certainly came from either my laptop or my server (which has a
fairly complete backup of my laptop's home directory in my server-based
home directory). Unfortunately, I have not yet seen anything suspicious
in the logs, so I am somewhat stuck for clues. I haven't yet wiped the
server, because i need my website to stay up for a couple more weeks,
and just plain don't have time to do the job right at the moment. I
already run snort (and have since day one), and it has logged lots of IP
addresses and blocked them. On the 5th, when this all came to light, I
re-ran tripwire, and it didn't show any unexpected changes.

If anyone has any other ideas, please feel free to share.

Dave
-- 
Beware the wrath of dragons, for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.
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