Spammers harvesting emails from here?
09-23-02, 05:23 PM
#1
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Thread Starter
Spammers harvesting emails from here?
Hi all,
I only somewhat recently signed up for the forums and began posting. Foolishly, I left the question 'Show email in profile' answered as Yes in my options. In the past weeks, I have begun recieving spam at my main email address where previously I had not been. Not only spam, but disgusting sex-related spam. I have been reporting them [not sure it does any good], but has anyone else noticed that? I have of course changed my profile so my email is hidden, but the b*st*rds probably already have it. I swear, if spamming were a capital offense, I would gladly pull the trigger.
Has this onslaught of spam hit anyone else, or am I just the lucky one? I can't think where else it would be coming from; I use a Hotmail or Yahoo address for sites I don't trust, and I'm going to start using that spamgourmet site I saw someone post about. My usenet address is munged, and the only other thing I've done differently is starting posting on these [and a few other] web site forums.
Note: I am in no way accusing DVDTalk, Mods, or Owners of selling addresses or spamming.
I only somewhat recently signed up for the forums and began posting. Foolishly, I left the question 'Show email in profile' answered as Yes in my options. In the past weeks, I have begun recieving spam at my main email address where previously I had not been. Not only spam, but disgusting sex-related spam. I have been reporting them [not sure it does any good], but has anyone else noticed that? I have of course changed my profile so my email is hidden, but the b*st*rds probably already have it. I swear, if spamming were a capital offense, I would gladly pull the trigger.
Has this onslaught of spam hit anyone else, or am I just the lucky one? I can't think where else it would be coming from; I use a Hotmail or Yahoo address for sites I don't trust, and I'm going to start using that spamgourmet site I saw someone post about. My usenet address is munged, and the only other thing I've done differently is starting posting on these [and a few other] web site forums.
Note: I am in no way accusing DVDTalk, Mods, or Owners of selling addresses or spamming.
09-24-02, 01:31 AM
#2
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There are a number of tools out there that sweep sites for addresses. This is one of the reason we've taken down the member list as it was an easy target for harvesting.
As you know we DO NOT disclose any information of forum members to anyone per our privacy policy and do whatever we can to protect our members.
It's unfortunate that such harvesting methods aren't illegal, as I feel that they are unethical
As you know we DO NOT disclose any information of forum members to anyone per our privacy policy and do whatever we can to protect our members.
It's unfortunate that such harvesting methods aren't illegal, as I feel that they are unethical
09-24-02, 05:05 AM
#3
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dtc - Go download http://www.mailwasher.net if you haven't already. Awesome program that lets you send a "bounce" message to spammers, delete it from the server, and create a blacklist for future use. It won't cut down on the amount of spam you receive but will certainly make it easier to deal with.
09-24-02, 05:02 PM
#5
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Thread Starter
Indeed--that Mailwasher looks pretty slick. I was using Eprompter as a mail notifier/pre-deleter, but if Mailwasher works as well as it looks, then it's replaced Eprompter. I like that you can easily view full headers; manually viewing them through Outlook is kind of a pain.
Geoffrey-I appreciate that; too many webmasters go for the buck and sell whatever they can. Not just web either; my local NC paper this weekend had an article about five or six major universities around here, selling their graduates' info to whomever would buy them....It's not like college tuition is expensive enough, they are going to make another buck off the students.
Geoffrey-I appreciate that; too many webmasters go for the buck and sell whatever they can. Not just web either; my local NC paper this weekend had an article about five or six major universities around here, selling their graduates' info to whomever would buy them....It's not like college tuition is expensive enough, they are going to make another buck off the students.
09-25-02, 12:35 AM
#7
DVD Talk Legend
A lot of people have been getting those types of spam lately, I think some fine, upstanding company hacked into M$N's email listing, even my mom get them! She NEVER gives her email away. I'll have to try that webwasher thing.
