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On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 5:22 PM, Julian Hall wrote: >> There are many ways how an email address can end up in a spammers' >> database (and once it's there, it'll stay there forever): >> 1. the email address has been published on a web site; >> 2. the local-part (bit before the @) of the email address is very >> "easy": spammers commonly try to send email to john@, tom@, mike@ >> addresses regardless of whether these exists; >> 3. the owner has dealt with a dodgy company/organization which has >> sold on the address; >> 4. the owner has dealt with a legitimate company/organization whose >> database has been hacked; >> 5. there is some malware on a computer that scans mailboxes for databases. >> > > You missed out 'subscribed to a mailing list that has been infiltrated by a > spider at some point'. I think that's covered by 4 and/or 5. As for 5, it takes one list member to check their email once on an infected computer for your email address to end up in a spammers' database. > Having said that, I suppose a one word ident like 'linux' obeys #2 of your > suggestions. Actually, I've seen really odd addresses recieve "dictionary attack spam" as they are called. At $dayjob I saw six spam messages to felipelardhampton@domain -- the local-part is totally unrelated to any user or address every existed on the domain. It's quite common for this to happen; my guess it's either a broken scraper-bot, or someone selling a database of email addresses and adding a bunch of random ones to make it look bigger. Martijn. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html