[Off-topic] "Spoofed" email addresses

I have had some reports that indicate that my email address (among many others in New Zealand) has been "spoofed", as distinct from being hacked (which is simply not realistically possible except by the N$A), and used to send out $pam/$cam emails, mainly to Yahoo groups to which I am subscribed. Recipients say that they have received some emails, purporting to be from my email address, containing only a link to a website with a long nonsensical name. If you have received any of these, DELETE THEM immediately! Many other people in New Zealand, mainly Yahoo/Xtra subscribers, have  reported the same thing on some previous occasions in the past two months. Changing passwords makes no difference, and there  is little that can be done short of closing down an email account..

Those linked websites in the $pam/$cam emails usually attempt to download malicious programs onto your computer, for purposes that include keystroke-logging, sending out more $cam/$cam emails, DDOS attacks on a particular website, or holding your files to "ransom" by encrypting them with a password which to get you have to pay someone in Russia/Ukraine/Belarus/Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan (which countries do not extradite their own nationals for crimes committed abroad or charge them locally with crimes committed abroad) by Bitcoin.

John W.