Who spams you?

weegie.geek

Like a lot of you I'm sure, I own a few domain names. https://www.myname.co.uk etc

One of the advantages of this is vanity email addresses. me@myname.co.uk for example. Most are setup so you can send to any email address at that domain and it'll go to the same mailbox. Send an email to dfeggr34tsdg34fsdf@myname.co.uk and I'll receive it in me@myname.co.uk but in the email details I'll still be able to see the intended recipient, dfeggr34tsdg34fsdf@myname.co.uk

It's handy for filtering out emails, and blocking spam. I could sign up to MSE using moneysavingexpert@myname.co.uk as my email address, and any correspondence to me from the site would be sent to that address, making it easy to ascertain that the email HAS actually come from MSE because nobody else knows of that email address's existence.

If I receive an email at moneysavingexpert@myname.co.uk trying to sell me viagra then I know Martin's either sold my details or there's been some security breach. :P

For the record this hasn't happened, so no need to worry.

I have, however received spam at a few addresses known only to certain companies.

Now, overly generic addresses like steve@myname.co.uk or admin@myname.co.uk don't work as well. There's a good chance of these accounts existing on multiple domains, so spammers spam these generic accounts in the hope that the email address actually exists.

If you publish the email address on your website or on a forum or somewhere, it'll get harvested by spam bots and spammed.

But if an email address has only ever been written on a signup form for a website, a forum, a newsletter etc, there's a damn good chance the website's sold your details.

And there are a few surprising places that have apparently sold my details to spammers.

Most of my spam is sent to specific email addresses. Not much generic admin@myname.co.uk or simon@myname.co.uk stuff really. I'm generally pretty careful with my email addresses...

Anyway, here's a few who've 100% definitely either sold my details to spammers/frauds or been hacked. If they HAVE been hacked, I've yet to receive an email from them to inform me that they've been compromised, like most companies do when there's a breach, so I have to assume that they've sold my details to spammers. :mad:

http://www.emusic.com/ - If you have a google around you'll see a few others mention this one. These guys are notorious for selling your email address to spammers. Viagra, phising emails, the lot.

http://www.buytech.co.uk/ - Again, Viagra and phishing mostly. I only ever signed up for

http://www.familymobile.co.uk/ - Yep, the Ikea mobile phone provider. spam to two separate and specific addresses, only ever used with Ikea. Again, Viagra and phishing.

There are a few others that aren't generic names but I wasn't sensible enough to give them names that'd obviously lead me back to who was given that email address. I'm much more careful these days.

I know that there's often a tickbox to opt out (or in) to receiving marketing emails from "related companies" but viagra and flatpack wardrobes aren't all that related. And no business would associate themselves with phishing.

It's a pretty bad show for eMusic and ikea. Which big companies have you got spam from/via?

timbim_2

Nice post, nice idea. Might try that, if I ever get a domain for me personally, wouldn't want to use a company domain, especially someone else's company!

I bet a certain simon who prudently obtained myname.com will now be hating you for sending a ton of spambots his way!

weegie.geek

Haha, perhaps! Sorry Simon!

If I had time I'd sign up to a lot more newsletters etc, a sort of spam honeytrap. It'd be nice to have some kind of automated system to out and shame the companies who are responsible for selling your details.

DrScotsman

With gmail (among probably many others) you can do similar with plussing. For example if you have address@gmail.com, then you also have address+anythingyoulike@gmail.com. Theoretically you could use this to the same effect.

In practice, many signup forums claim that + is not a valid character in an email address, so this is no good. Gmail also allows you to place dots in email addresses like add.ress@gmail.com for the same effect, but dots aren't exactly easy to keep track of (and I don't know if you're allowed consecutive dots)

(The geniuses at moneysupermarket think pluses are valid for signing up but not valid for unsubscribing...cheeky !!!!ers)

timbim_2

Nice as such a system might be, I would probably find it totally redundant anyway, the google spam filter is truly fantastic at catching spam, it's never missed anything, and I'm unaware of any false positives. Same for the exchange server I've got an address under. I suppose that when you get as many email addresses as google do, you can spot spambot omnidirectional sending fairly easily.

DrScotsman

Still, it would be nice to know who the offenders are.

Is this sort of breach of the DPA a criminal offence, or just a civil one? If the former, might be nice to let them get what they deserve

Poppycat

I use gmail it stops 99% of spam for me its better than hotmail, yahoo

DrScotsman

By the aforementioned dots-in-gmail-addresses, I've deduced that ONE of three companies has likely given away one of my email addresses. One is some obscure foreign games retailer, the second is https://www.monster.co.uk and the third is dear old Aunt Bessie :eek:

Who bets it's Bessie?

preable

Poppycat wrote: »

I use gmail it stops 99% of spam for me its better than hotmail, yahoo

I use gmail and all my spam goes to the spam box not like hotmail

weegie.geek

DrScotsman wrote: »

Who bets it's Bessie?

I've just signed up so I'll see.

John_Gray

Why not use a disposable email address company and create one email address per company/organisation/person you deal with?
You simply cause each email address to forward to your real email address.
Example: emails sent to
[EMAIL="WeegieAmazon@forwarder.com"]WeegieAmazon@forwarder.com[/EMAIL] (this domain is dummy)
and
[EMAIL="WeegieAmazon@forwarder.com"]WeegieEbay@forwarder.com[/EMAIL] (this domain is dummy)
get forwarded to
[EMAIL="RealWeegieAddress@myrealdomain.co.uk"]RealWeegieAddress@myrealdomain.co.uk[/EMAIL] (this domain is dummy too!)

Just checking up: I have 156 organisation-specific email addresses.