----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave P" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Mon, 5 Apr 2004, TonyTebby wrote: > > > No surprise - a lot of access providers sell all e-mail addresses > > systematically. > > Unlikely. It is business suicide to do this. Most providers couldn't, > wouldn't, and fully understand the costs of doing so.
You cannot be in France then ! This was done by both Wanadoo and FreeSurf when I signed up. A recent signup to Wanadoo with a very unusual company name was receiving spam within a week. Unwary surfers in France have to put up with much worse - modified interfaces that only let you access the web through their advertising pages (promoted as "simplified access") that do not allow you to disconnect and reconnect without returning to the advertising page ... and French surfers pay for this type of "service" ! > > What actually happens is that spammers separate the usernames from the > domain. They don't sell and trade "email addresses", they trade login > names, in the belief that if you use a username one place, you'll use it > other places, or other people will use the same name. It's certainly more > statistically likely than random letters to send mail to ALL known login > names at EVERY domain. > Yes, although 90% of spam I get is to a specific [EMAIL PROTECTED] combination, I pick up a lot of this convincing names (mostly just forenames) in my catch-all accounts. Lesson: do not set up account names such as Robert, Hugh etc. (I made that mistake more than once). Tony T _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List
