Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#1

Post by sbf501 » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

For 10 years I've been using a custom email for every retailer I shop at that asks for an email address, always in the form of "company@mydomain.com". I did not keep track of how many custom emails I used (hundreds, easily), but I have received spam from exactly zero of these accounts.

The only account that I received is one I used on my public website as a "mailto:" link. 100% of my spam comes from this address. I host on runbox.com.

Is the fear of "people selling your email to spammers" a modern myth, or are spam filters that good?

I would argue the former since I still get 30 spam emails a day from my website email address, and zero from companies that ask for them.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#2

Post by kloch » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

Another thing guaranteed to attract spam is a public contact email on a domain name.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#3

Post by db48x » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

Email spam is the bottom of the barrel compared to tracking people on Facebook.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#4

Post by lathiat » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

Depends if they get breached haveibeenpwned.com style. I definitely and clearly get spam from several breaches. Some is generic (it’s on some big spam list) and some of it is targeted - like crowd funding campaigns spamming the hacked list of kickstarter accounts - which I am surprised how much of I get given how community driven such things often but I guess are not always.

Some of these addresses were the unique style you mentioned.

So I guess you’re just lucky.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#5

Post by OrangeMonkey » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

I'm glad you had a good experience. I had a different one.

I've ran my own domain for longer than you have, and many emails have been compromised.

Some are 100% from companies selling the emails to sister companies.

The majority, though, is from a company itself being compromised by hackers / database access / etc. LinkedIn, Neopets, ProFlowers, TeeSpring, etc. I can go on.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#6

Post by cassianoleal » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

I've been doing this for 2-3 years. Probably also in the hundreds of emails given. I have had one such email used for spam.

Edit to add: I have no spam filters on those accounts.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#7

Post by bombcar » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #5

I'm glad you had a good experience. I had a different one. I've ran my own domain for longer than you have, and many emails have been compromised. Some are 100% from companies selling the emails to sister companies. The majority, though, is from a company itself being compromised by hackers / database access / etc. LinkedIn, Neopets, ProFlowers, TeeSpring, etc. I can go on.

Compromises are 99% of those I see (similar setup) - the last 1% is acquired companies that have pivoted/do something else.

It's not quite spam, it's not quite illegitimate, but it's not what I signed up for.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#8

Post by darkerside » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

Spam is just any unwanted email, and I'm sure you're receiving plenty of those. I assume what you haven't received are phishing emails with malicious links?

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#9

Post by groffee » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

If they do sell the emails it'd be a simple job to clean them first (i.e remove any that explicitly mention their company name) Spammers are a pain in the ass, but not stupid.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#10

Post by magnat » Mon, Aug 15, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

After doing the same since 2003, out of ~200 email addresses used 18 are listed on HIBP, ~15 receive dozens of spam emails a day (or rather: would receive if I hadn't completely blocked them) and ~10 see almost non-stop login attempts from all around the world via IMAP and SMTP.

Address linked with "mailto:" on a contact page had to be blocked after a few years. Same with WHOIS addresses (published before there were sane privacy rules for those). Address with "@" and "." replaced with "at" and "dot" receive no spam at all.

Summed up, there are a few hundred inbound messages a day. Spamassassin and some basic postfix rules filters almost all of them. One or two a month get through.