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Re: [LUG] Email security

 

On 20/04/2010 17:08, Martijn Grooten wrote:
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 1:01 PM, NW wrote:
On my emails I get hardly any spam. (I don't have any filters set up for
myself.) My wife gets lots. We have a web site and I use the email set
up on there (IMAP). Recently I have persuaded the wife to move across to
using emails on our web site to try to avoid her getting so much rubbish.

Don't ask me why, but she has started getting rubbish emails already. I
have set up some filters, which are already having to block over forty
addresses!
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'. Could explain for me why this address which has only ever been used for LUG email also gets spam. Having said that, I suppose a one word ident like 'linux' obeys #2 of your suggestions. Time to change it *again* I think. Luckily it's my domain so it's not exactly a major issue.

Julian

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