> Stardate 8/3/01 2:03 am, Diane L. Schirf's log:
>> My point was that there are only two places that spammers got my Hotmail
>> address: (1) using software that generates e-mail addresses by permutations
>> of letters and (2) the Hotmail directory, which I removed myself from long
>> ago, but apparently too late, after the damage was done.
>
> My 2¢: I have two fairly recent Hotmail accounts (one for personal, one for
> a business project) which I set up with Entourage (never felt the desire
> when I had OE). Neither of them have been listed in Hotmail Directory, the
> personal one has received practically nothing but spam, the other not a
> sniff. The much-spammed one has a simple address:
> <FirstnameSurname>@hotmail.com, the unspammed account is more esoteric. Do
> you think it's getting so much traffic because the name is actually quite
> "guessable"?
>
This is a message sent to me after recently switching ISPs: (maybe an email
should follow the same formula)
> Your password is insecure. Current versions of email sending systems now
> regularly report this by checking your password against a rudimentary
> password cracking dictionary program (the same as all hackers and cyber
> criminals have) and reports if you are an "easy mark", which you appear
> to qualify as. Passwords should not be any word that can be found in a
> dictionary in any of the "romance" languages... (english, french, german,
> etc etc...). Not only that, substituting numbers for letters like a one
> for an L or a 5 for an S don't fool these programs with any assurance.
>
> Passwords should look like license plate codes, random selections of upper
> and lower case letters with numbers interspersed. That's the reality of
> our cyber savvy world today, not everyone plays fair.
--
Robert Strachan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
If this car is being driven safely, call the cops - it's been stolen!
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