Subject: Re: The utilitiy of IP is at stake here

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 08:56:40 -0700 (Pacific Standard Time)

On Sat, 31 May 2003, Anthony Atkielski wrote:

> Terry writes:
>
> > At least one of them is a combination of letters
> > and numbers that I would have expected to
> > resist most dictionary spam attacks.
>
> To whom have you sent e-mail from that address?

In several cases, *no* one.  That is, these were test accounts I set
up for my own purposes and had never used to communicate with others.

> If they didn't use a dictionary attack, and they didn't harvest the address,
> how did they get it?

Beats me.  Perhaps a more sophisticated dictionary attack than I would
have expected.  Or maybe the ISPs sold them.  Or got hacked.  Who
knows?  I'm just reporting that it is happening, and routinely.  I
hear from enough other people of similar experiences to know that this
is not an isolated phenomenon.

-teg

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 08:08:02 -0700 (Pacific Standard Time)

On Sat, 31 May 2003, Anthony Atkielski wrote:

> > I did. I created more than one e-mail address
> > without ever making them public, and though I
> > note some of them receive SPAM!
>
> Were the addresses along the lines of "postmaster," "info," or "webmaster,"
> by chance?

> They must either harvest them or guess them.  For non-obvious e-mail
> addresses that are never published, they cannot practically do either of
> these, and so the addresses will not be spammed.

I have several accounts where the address has never been posted or
even used in any public way... They *all* get spam (and none of them
are generic addresses e.g. "info".)  At least one of them is a
combination of letters and numbers that I would have expected to
resist most dictionary spam attacks.  It did not.

-teg