[Dixonary] OT: spam & addresses [was "I think this game..."]

[Dodi Schultz]

Tim B reports that,

>> ...having just received a couple of spams to this address, I looked
>> at them in more detail.... In the To field one of them lists four of
>> my email addresses; the other lists five. In each case the above
>> address, which as I said I have never used anywhere but here, is one
>> of the list.

Interesting, Tim. I didn't know you had five addresses! Paul says he has
three for you in his address book. I have only two in mine.

I've had a couple of different addresses, but I can't recall any spam using
more than one at a time.

P.S.: I got three spams in the last batch of mail TAPCIS fetched from my
mailbox. One was addressed to me properly, along with a bunch of others at
the same ISP. A second was addressed to me at "csi," an obsolete label once
used by the service (again with others similarly addressed). And the third
was addressed to someone named "schubert"; can anyone explain how that one
reached me at all? (No, I've never used such an alias.)

--Dodi

[Lindsey]

>> And the third was addressed to someone named "schubert"; can anyone
>> explain how that one reached me at all? (No, I've never used such an alias.)

Your address (along with many others, more than likely) was on a BCC list.

--Lindsey

[Hugo Kornelis]

Hi Dodi,

> And the third
> was addressed to someone named "schubert"; can anyone explain how that one
> reached me at all? (No, I've never used such an alias.)

What Lindsey says. Or, alternately, some automated spam sending program
combined a random name from a builtin list of names with an email address
from a list of known email addresses. Or even a randomly generated email
address.

Best, Hugo

[Tim Bourne]

> Interesting, Tim. I didn't know you had five addresses!


I have a lot more than that!

As I have my own domain, siam.co.uk, I can create as many addresses as I
like, and I tend to use a different one for each organisation I belong
to, to make it easier to file the messages automatically. In addition, I
have one each on Yahoo and Google, and one from my ISP.

Best wishes,
Tim B.

[Guerri Stevens]

If you still have the "Schubert" Email, see whether it uses your numeric
ID. I used to get mail like that, to my numeric ID, but with a fake name.

Guerri

Dodi Schultz wrote:
> I've had a couple of different addresses, but I can't recall any spam using
> more than one at a time.
>
> P.S.: I got three spams in the last batch of mail TAPCIS fetched from my
> mailbox. One was addressed to me properly, along with a bunch of others at
> the same ISP. A second was addressed to me at "csi," an obsolete label once
> used by the service (again with others similarly addressed). And the third
> was addressed to someone named "schubert"; can anyone explain how that one
> reached me at all? (No, I've never used such an alias.)

[Dodi Schultz]

>> > And the third was addressed to someone named "schubert"; can
>> anyone explain how that one reached me at all? (No, I've never used
>> such an alias.) <
>>
>> Your address (along with many others, more than likely) was on a BCC
>> list.

Ah! Probably an alphabetical list, then, with "Schubert" heading it. Makes
sense.

Thanks, Lindsey.

--Dodi

[Dodi Schultz]

>> If you still have the "Schubert" Email, see whether it uses your
>> numeric ID. I used to get mail like that, to my numeric ID, but with
>> a fake name.

No, Guerri, it just used the alias. I think Lindsey's probably got it
right: "Schubert" headed the list and was followed by a bunch of BCCs,
including me.

--Dodi

[Lindsey]

>> Ah! Probably an alphabetical list, then, with "Schubert" heading it. Makes
>> sense.

Oh, yeah, you're right -- I hadn't thought about it being alphabetical, but now that you point it out, that would fit. I used to see that a lot in my CompuServe spam -- my address would be one of a bunch of "L" addresses. And Hugo could well be right -- the list could have been generated by putting a list of likely names together with a list of known domains.

--Lindsey