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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?

#411

Post by MonkeyClub »

doyouevensunbro wrote: post #366
zrail wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The absolute worst offender are political activists: (In the US) The alias I used for one of the big donation platforms has apparently been given to every single person running for any political office in the state along with many out of state. It gets dozens of emails a day, most of which automatically end up in spam.

Same here. Ends up making me regret donating at all, which someone has to realize would be the end result, right?

> which someone has to realize would be the end result, right?

They would, if they were giving out unique email addresses or used aliases/catch-all.

If they're just giving out me@domain to everyone, then it's just "natural" spam.

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

#413

Post by blamazon »

inetknght wrote: post #405
blamazon wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a two-party problem? Due to the polarity, people (as a mob) are 'forced' to back their party regardless of how scummy the affiliated actors act. Your regret means nothing because you probably still won't vote for another party and they already have as much of your money as you are willing to give. They can continue to harvest funds with these dark patterns with no cost - and they will find some whales…

> I think this is a two-party problem? No, it's a problem with the CAN-SPAM act.

Why exactly would congress legislate this tool out of their toolbox to no benefit? Need to be disincentivized another way.

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

#414

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

rahoulb wrote: post #218
hollowpython wrote: post #207

Question: can you recommend any service to quickly create new accounts, but redirect them to my main one?

Apple iCloud+ (if you use Apple devices)

Alas, this further entrenches lock-in.

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

#415

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

lightlyused wrote: post #36
nathanaldensr wrote: post #31

I have been receiving tons of lame sellers from @gmail.com email addresses trying to sell things like toenail clippers. Emails were sent to the email address I used to sign up for hired.com.

I get the same thing, along with spam for t-shirts. Lots of spam coming directly from GCP.

Last I checked, you cannot send email from GCP IPs, as outbound mail traffic is dropped at their border. Did they change this?

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

#416

Post by TheBozzCL »

neya wrote: post #281

I buy a lot of stuff from AliExpress, eBay and Alibaba, it goes without saying you should use a separate email address for those. My email was not only sold, I started getting malware themed links shared to me as Google Drive files. The moment you click on it (and I did from another test env.) - it straight up runs some clever JS and then downloads a DMG or EXE file which is clearly spyware (multiple flags from AV pr…

The Whatsapp part almost sounds like Pegasus.

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

#417

Post by nulbyte »

maicro wrote: post #321
nulbyte wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same with Gmail. I get lots of email for firstlast@ because someone can't be bothered to remember the numbers after their username. Then I have also gotten coffee receipts for a cardiologist (he likes Major Dickason's blend), wedding invitations, boating newsletters, and even modeling opportunities in a different country. It amazes me how many people either don't know their email address or can't imagine s…

The coffee receipts I can understand - if a shop uses Square or a similar tablet-based POS system, I could see requesting an emailed receipt, typing in the wrong email address, and then not noticing when it never arrived. Some of those systems link your email address to your payment method, so if you just hit "email receipt" every time, without double-checking and catching the typo, you (the wrong recipient) will jus…

> The coffee receipts I can understand - if a shop uses Square or a similar tablet-based POS system

Oh, no; this was direct from Peet's website. Doctor's office had a recurring shipment.

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

#418

Post by ASalazarMX »

dmje wrote: post #216
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…

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…

In my most generic address I mostly receive email from a Bolivian government officer, a Mexican government officer, and a Texan guy who has changed jobs a lot since before the pandemic. I've found and contacted them about the wrong address, but they never fully stopped using it for new accounts. At least I tried.

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

#419

Post by antifa »

xmprt wrote: post #376
hutzlibu wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just trying to get an idea of if this is still happening even now." Do you think the spammers retired? I doubt it, there is only a shift towards trying to get more phone numbers instead of email.

I figured that our phones would have had better security principles to prevent this from happening now but I guess I was mistaken.

Phone OS software is pretty blantently negligent in this regard.

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

#420

Post by joshka »

If you include various information disclosure incidents, I counted 23 or so, and then a bunch where I can't recall exactly what the address was used for at some point in the past.

Adobe (twice), NetTeller (twice), Boxee, IceTv, LinkedIn (a few addresses), TheTVDB, Paypal, some old forum sites, ableton, dropbox, last.fm, plex, smartdraw, PokerTracker, PartyPoker, several other poker related sites, some shopping discount sites, various small restaurant sites and tourism email addresses, various quote aggregator websites.

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