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Re: [LUG] email

 

Paul Hirst wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 08:11 +0100, James Fidell wrote:
>> Dan Lewis wrote:
>>> get your own domain = unlimited email addresses and then just tell the
>>> domain to forward all incoming mail ending with the domain to gmail
>> And then wait for someone to fake addresses in your domain as the
>> originating address for millions of spam messages and watch the bounces
>> come flooding in :)
> 
> Has this actually happened to you? I've not seen this in several years
> of using a 'catch all' domain for my email.

I don't run catchall addresses, so no, it hasn't happened to me.  I've
dealt with the mess left behind when it's happened to other people
though, and know more  who have been on the receiving end of tens or
even hundreds of thousands of bounce messages for this reason.

> I find it rather useful as I can use a different email address for each
> and every company I supply one to. Then if I start receiving spam on a
> particular address I can just dump it to /dev/null using procmail.

TBH I just tend to rely on my spam filtering and as a general rule it
works fairly well.  I get a *lot* of spam targeted at my address, too --
I've had the same one for the thick end of fifteen years and I've never
bothered to obfuscate it.  However, I manage my own mail servers and
make a point of training spamassassin regularly on spam and ham.

> So far this has been a perfect spam solution. It's also interesting to
> see which companies have either been compromised or have sold my email
> address to the spammers. Evans and Cotton Traders are two that have
> stuck in my mind although there have been a few more.

If I wanted to create disposable addresses, I'd probably create the ones
I need as I needed them rather than have a catch-all.  My understanding
from mail operators generally is that they've stopped, or would like to
stop, offering catch-all addresses specifically because of the spam
backscatter issue.

James

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