Hi,

I've just (this morning and last night) got two separate bits of spam email -- to my main account, which I only give to real people. I have never got spam to this email address before. I use other spam labelled accounts on other places, so that I can tell who sold my email address to other people.

So, the only thing I've done recently is emailed web hosting providers, and now I'm getting spam.

Seriously, that's all I have done -- unless Yahoo is selling email addresses (unlikely) or my friends or potential employers are (very unlikely).

I've only contacted a few web hosts, who are:
duploweb.com
aussiehosts.com
tacidhost.com (tacid blue)

Have other people experienced more spam email when they have contacted these people?

It's just a theory I have.

Simon Russell.

How long is your email address? I'm receiving boatloads of spam through an email address I never even knew I had -- because it was a common name@domain and some spammer found it through a dictionary search. (happy ending: I've since gotten that email alias removed and I'm receiving much less spam now)

I posted a review on hostsearch for a company and low and behold, a few days later I was spammed by a new company (info zone) that got listed in the latest news listing of hostsearch.

Do your friends/family forward you cute jokes, etc.? Do they leave everyone's name/email address in the CC field?

That is where I would look first.

I seriously doubt that aussiehosts.com is selling your information. The other two - I don't know.

--Tina

Originally posted by etoastw

I've just (this morning and last night) got two separate bits of spam email -- to my main account, which I only give to real people. I have never got spam to this email address before. I use other spam labelled accounts on other places, so that I can tell who sold my email address to other people.

So, the only thing I've done recently is emailed web hosting providers, and now I'm getting spam.



I've stopped using mike@Anything.com because mike is such a widely used email name. I have also stopped using Mikennn@Anything.com because nnn is easy to suss by starting at 000 and incrementing until the spammer finds the Mike123 that I use.

What I have noticed is that a domain name is "noticed", then a standard dictionary-based attack is performed against that domain, trying to find the more common email addresses.

The SMTP protocol makes it easy because there is a command to verify an email address for a domain (if you must, look here http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc821.html and search for VRFY). The smarter ISPs and hosting companies will return useless data for that command.

My ISP address is on the Whois lookup of my domian. I get hammered with spam. You know what I do? I delete them, not enough time in the day to trace and report them all. But I would never purchase anything from a spammer.

The one I get the most is that make money in 90 days thing. Can't understand it anymore - every sentence is typed in a different english accent.

I suggest using a catch-all email address...and use name specific email addresses for whatever you're submitting your email address to.

Example:

For Yahoo E-groups, I use yahoo@mydomain.com
For submitting to search engines (like Lycos, for example) I would use lycos@mydomain.com

Anytime you correspond with someone, use something that will let you know where the spam came from - should you get any.

--Tina

I've only contacted a few web hosts, who are:
duploweb.com
aussiehosts.com
tacidhost.com (tacid blue)

Have you noticed the thread in this forum titled "It has to be done" ?
There seem to be a number of accusations that tacidhost.com has
an unusually poor sense of ethics... Perhaps you should post your
question in that thread.

Originally posted by bgwhiz
...tacidhost.com has an unusually poor sense of ethics...

I will rather prefer to say totally unethical.

If you have a Yahoo email address is is open to the public and spiders. All their members are listed on their site if you dig deep enough.

Some companies also take a simple inquiry as the signal to sign you up for thier newsletters and announcements. Then once you're in thier DB they sell your name to listing companies.