> > It may not have been entirely the ISP's fault. > >Great post! Thank you. In this particular case, however, the email address >in question was only used to identify the main email address at the ISP. It >was never put into circulation anyplace else, hence the suspicion that they >were selling it. >Stephen
It's also possible that they were hit by address harvesting robots. It's getting rather common, unfortunately. What they do is attempt to send mail to a series of common email names one after another: aaron, aardvark, abner, alice... ...zebra. It's pretty obvious what's happening when you look at the server logs. When they get a connection and are able to deliver, they log that name and add it to their "79 billion verified email addresses!!!!" CD and sell it to spammers. It's a tough hack to fight. The server I have been using for a number of years (SIMS - on Mac OS of course - by stalker.com) tracks these rejections and if there are too many in a certain period of time the sending server gets put on a temporary blacklist and all further attempts are blocked for a period of time. Many mail servers don't have that capability. One other little trick that some of us mail server administrators have been using is to feed them spamtrap addresses. Then when any mail comes in containing one of those addresses, the entire mail gets quietly disposed of. Since spammers often send to multiple addresses at a time, the real names and the spamtrap names on the server are often in the same mail header, and out it goes. -- Bill Christensen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Green Homes For Sale/Lease: http://www.greenbuilder.com/realestate/ Green Building Pro Directory: http://directory.greenbuilder.com/ Sustainable Bldg Calendar: http://www.greenbuilder.com/calendar/ Sustainable Bldg Bookstore: http://www.greenbuilder.com/bookstore International Strawbale Registry: http://sbregistry.greenbuilder.com -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
