151–160 of 444 posts
For the large sites like fb, linkedin, twitter, etc I do use unique emails. Not so much for spam, just to compartmentalize them away from my primary email so they don't have it.
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…
But in the last few years I started getting hotel reservations, golf course membership, bills, orders for liver supplements. I tracked down who it is ages ago and sent them an email (I was cordial - "Hey we have such similar names but I'm on the other side of the world, crazy huh?") and got no response. Eventually I replied to the liver pill people and said "Hey this isn't me and if you could let the actual person know that'd be great" and the emails stopped. Way to go liver pill people.
Dropbox stands out as 1) a company I didn’t expect would sell my email, and 2) some of the worst spammers in terms of phishing/scam attempts.
In Germany there are lots of freemail providers. Some of them sell all the contact data to spammers: - web.de - gmx.de/net/com I reproduced this with a new domain, a nowhere occuring email on an email server that does not list its accounts via imap, and a single email from those services to the new email was enough to receive spam afterwards; even when the email wasn't listed anywhere on the web. On a couple other ad…
More than 15 years ago the addresses I had used for Financial Times and Finnair started to get Viagra etc spam. At least one of them was after a big leak at an online marketing firm that made headlines. I closed the addresses so I have no idea whether the flood has ever stopped.
Maybe 10 years ago I booked a cruise to Saint Petersburg using a coupon from Groupon. After that I started to get spam in Russian. I don't read Russian but online gambling was obviously a topic. I contacted Groupon and asked about their sharing. Talked to their head of don't remember and he claimed it's simple: They don't share the address with anyone. It was obviously not true befause I never had any contact with Russia before or after and the timing was very evident. I closed the address.
Another address is in the Linux source / LKML. It gets Nigeria letters all the time, but with low frequency. Less than 1 a week on average. Maybe 1 or 2 in German and French over the years.
Those are the biggest cases. Maybe some other odd one over 20 years. It's worse with completely stupid tech marketing on my work address (which has been the same for 4 years).
I have used different email addresses for ever recipient/registration for 20 years. There have been very few incidents. More than 15 years ago the addresses I had used for Financial Times and Finnair started to get Viagra etc spam. At least one of them was after a big leak at an online marketing firm that made headlines. I closed the addresses so I have no idea whether the flood has ever stopped. Maybe 10 years ago I…
Edit: And there has always been spam to my gmail address. I have shared/stored my gmail address in extremely few locations just for forwarding and it's of form first.last@gmail.com. There are only 3-5 people on the planet with the same name. The spam comes without dot so I guess it's not from a list of email addresses, but generated from a list of names. My name has been on the Internet e.g. in Usenet and in scientific papers many times long before gmail existed. Volume is not too bad, a couple of them every month. It was worse years ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re probably joking, but in case you aren’t, don’t put in an address for a registered domain like void.com, as you’ll just be redirecting the spam to them. Instead use the reserved domain example.com.
I just use the domain of the site the account belongs to. If I'm getting really naughty, I will put sales@
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…
Aside from that, I'm guessing it's mostly my Git commits on GitHub being the source.