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On Tue, 20 Apr 2010, 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;
Most mail sites will see these regularly.
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.
6. There is some malware on a friends computer which has her email address in their address-book.
Sometimes the spammers baffle me though - here's a small extract from a dictionary attack recently (although I'd love to know where they got the dictionary from!)
<toodlesbhzf@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesbmzl@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesbuab@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesdc@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesegam@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesevbw@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesfe@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesfi@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesgmxi@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesgx@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesgz@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesik@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesisux@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodleslob@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesna@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesoho@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesoiyt@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesokz@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesosaz@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesqg@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesqrwf@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesqtap@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesrquq@xxxxxxxxxx>... <toodlesrsfo@xxxxxxxxxx>... Maybe it means something in russian/chinese/hungarian/etc. though. Gordon -- 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