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Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

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Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#301

Post by thread_id »

bshep wrote: post #285

I use spamgourmet, these are my most spammed emails: id emails creation notes ======================================= freepsp 37177 2005-09-23 mtgox 21229 2011-06-19 scriptaculous 10408 2006-03-27 winex 5103 2007-05-01 patriciafield 4293 2007-03-09 rms 3472 2007-03-10 www.rmsexperts.com wallstsense 3310 2009-04-01 panda 3300 2004-11-02 panda antivirus Edited for formatting

SpamGourmet will be sutting down soon (circa 2019)

https://bbs.spamgourmet.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1785&sid=3e7...

There are intersting tales of how users of this service used multiple accounts to thwart spam.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#302

Post by cdoctorow »

Tepix wrote: post #128

There are a bunch like AliExpress, eBay, Paypal and kickstarter where 3rd parties get your email address too (or used to), so you don't know which one leaked them. I tend to change the email address every few years when it gets too much and block the old ones after a while. I suspect that most of the entries on the list got hacked. There are a few exceptions where companies do not honor unsubscribe requests and keep…

I find that bizarre. It's just a mailman instance. Did the bot send you a confirmation email? Did you try emailing me instead? A few times over the 15-ish years that I ran the list, Mailman has failed to honor unsub requests, and in each case, it turned out to be because the user signed up with a different send-to than their return-to - for example, if you signed up as doctorow-list+youremail@gmail.com, and then send an unsub from youremail@gmail.com, Mailman (correctly) rejects the unsub request, because it doesn't have a subscriber called youremail@gmail.com. In those (rare) cases, I take care of it manually.

If you're still subscribed and not able to unsub, please just email me, doctorow@craphound.com, and I'll unsubscribe you by hand.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#303

Post by AviationAtom »

You raise an interesting point from a security perspective:

Unique passwords aren't the only need these days, often unique email addresses are too.

Credential stuffing has become so prolific that people are often finding themselves locked out of their own accounts, due to failed attempts. It has the added benefit of letting you know who was breached.

I encountered roughly the same when I received a Bitcoin extortion email, with a unique password in it. I correlated it with my password database, to discover who had been breached. I reached out publicly to the company to ask what was up, as they never notified me of a breach. Initially they played it down, but then finally confessed they had been breached.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#304

Post by lbotos »

garbagetime wrote: post #288
lbotos wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good theory, but dots don't matter in gmail addresses: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en

I don't think that contradicts your parent comment's theory

On re-reading, you are right!

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#305

Post by bshep »

thread_id wrote: post #301
bshep wrote: post #285

I use spamgourmet, these are my most spammed emails: id emails creation notes ======================================= freepsp 37177 2005-09-23 mtgox 21229 2011-06-19 scriptaculous 10408 2006-03-27 winex 5103 2007-05-01 patriciafield 4293 2007-03-09 rms 3472 2007-03-10 www.rmsexperts.com wallstsense 3310 2009-04-01 panda 3300 2004-11-02 panda antivirus Edited for formatting

SpamGourmet will be sutting down soon (circa 2019) https://bbs.spamgourmet.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1785&sid=3e7... There are intersting tales of how users of this service used multiple accounts to thwart spam.

Last message on that thread from jul/2021 says it will not be shutting down for now. I really like the service and I hope it doesn't shut down..

Also these are my overall stats:

  Your message stats: 21,008 forwarded, 272,134 eaten. You have 1007 spamgourmet address(es).

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#306

Post by chewmieser »

narag wrote: post #23

I mostly use one single address, but I can tell you exactly where all the spam comes from: idiots whose name is the same as mine. They give my address as if it belonged to them. Probably they created addresses like narag33@server and they believe that it's narag@server instead. So not only I receive all the spam from dubious sites that they suscribed to, but also their legitimate mail from lists and friends. My names…

All the time... I get about 4 different people trying to use my email address, mostly in the US but one in the UK as well. Thankfully the UK guy's wife also made the mistake so I just forward the emails to her now and she's stopped some of it.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#307

Post by fer »

bshep wrote: post #285

I use spamgourmet, these are my most spammed emails: id emails creation notes ======================================= freepsp 37177 2005-09-23 mtgox 21229 2011-06-19 scriptaculous 10408 2006-03-27 winex 5103 2007-05-01 patriciafield 4293 2007-03-09 rms 3472 2007-03-10 www.rmsexperts.com wallstsense 3310 2009-04-01 panda 3300 2004-11-02 panda antivirus Edited for formatting

Panda Antivirus, that's one I hadn't heard of in a long time.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#309

Post by jonahbenton »

johnklos wrote: post #296

There have been plenty of small companies, but the ones that have been most egregious are Adobe and Avid. Adobe are just a bunch of idiots who have no clue what they're doing. There's a whole story, but let's just summarize by saying they have people working for them who both want to argue about how it's "not possible", yet have zero insight in to how their data is stored. I couldn't get anyone at Avid to listen even…

Adobe for 20+ years has been one of the largest data brokers. They know exactly what they are doing.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#310

Post by agrippanux »

kolinko wrote: post #276
dmje wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite gratifying to read that I'm not alone in this. I was really early into Gmail so have first.last@ and get a lot of stuff emailed to me that is exactly as you describe - not spam, just mistaken address. Hotel reservations, golf clubs, Republican party bullshit, hilarious copies of order receipts from gun shops... (The last one of the above I replied to - it was an order for a rifle scope. I sent what I thought wa…

Hear hear. I have lastname@gmail.com and keep receiving various e-mails intended for people with my surname. Insurance documents and other semi-confidential stuff included.

I have a lastname@gmail and I get a steady stream of material invoices for someone who builds prisons in Africa. I tried for a while to push back but to no avail. Upside - I know how much concrete is denoted by Zambian kwacha.
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