Another reason to avoid Bicycle Victoria membership.

[Stuart Lamble]

Logged in this morning. The usual deluge of spam. Had a close look at
two of them ... hm. They were sent to an email address that I used to
register with Bicycle Victoria, and which I never used anywhere else.

Looks like either BV is selling email addresses for cash, or there's a
leak in their system. Either way, I flat out refuse to support groups
that do that sort of thing.

Now it's time to change my setup so that email address will bounce,
instead of accepting email. Easy.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

 

[flyingdutch]

Logged in this morning. The usual deluge of spam. Had a close look at
two of them ... hm. They were sent to an email address that I used to
register with Bicycle Victoria, and which I never used anywhere else.

Looks like either BV is selling email addresses for cash, or there's a
leak in their system. Either way, I flat out refuse to support groups
that do that sort of thing.

Now it's time to change my setup so that email address will bounce,
instead of accepting email. Easy.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

you should pass that onto them, or even go to the AGM and state that.
Seems rather strange on first look, but seeing as the main reason for their monumental loss this fin.year being their apocolypse in their IT system, perhaps its not that hard to understand...

any chance you can tell me more 'off-line' ?

 

[GPLama]

arh - they prolly were pwned by hax0rs...


cheers,
GPL

 

[EuanB]

Logged in this morning. The usual deluge of spam. Had a close look at
two of them ... hm. They were sent to an email address that I used to
register with Bicycle Victoria, and which I never used anywhere else.

Looks like either BV is selling email addresses for cash, or there's a
leak in their system. Either way, I flat out refuse to support groups
that do that sort of thing.

Now it's time to change my setup so that email address will bounce,
instead of accepting email. Easy.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

That's a stretch. Many spammers send out spam to email addresses which are nothing more than guesses. It costs next to nothing to send out spam so in the eyes of a spammer it's a legitimate tactic.

Not saying what you're suggesting's not happened, just saying you need to be sure of your facts and not act on supposition.

 

[Stuart Lamble]

On 2005-10-10, EuanB <[email protected]> wrote:
> That's a stretch. Many spammers send out spam to email addresses which
> are nothing more than guesses. It costs next to nothing to send out
> spam so in the eyes of a spammer it's a legitimate tactic.

Oh, I definitely concur. But combine that with the fact that there's
nothing else from those spammers to random addresses, and I'd say it's
almost certainly a leak somewhere.

> Not saying what you're suggesting's not happened, just saying you need
> to be sure of your facts and not act on supposition.

To clarify why I believe this is what has happened: all email (as in
*all* email) sent to my box (carousel.its.monash.edu.au) ends up in one
of my mailboxes. The exceptions are a number of addresses that have
received spam in the past, and old Usenet addresses (remember that the
addresses I use to post to Usenet, whilst valid, expire after two
weeks. Cuts down on spam enormously.)

I received two emails to the address I gave to Bicycle Victoria: one
advertising an online pharmaceutical mob, and one purporting to be from
eBay's billing department (a phish, in other words.) I did not receive
those emails to a random address; in fact, I haven't received *any*
emails to randomly generated addresses in my time. (Some might look like
it, but it turns out that some spammers are using Usenet message IDs as
if they're email addresses ... *boggle* That's as close to random as
I've seen them come.)

So taking those two facts (the presence of spam to the address BV has,
combined with a lack of spam to any address other than that one), and
combine them, and I am completely comfortable in asserting that, at the
very least, BV has a leak in their email address database. It's possible
that they're selling addresses, but there's definitely a whiff of
incompetence in their IT staff at the very least.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

 

[cfsmtb]

That's a stretch. Many spammers send out spam to email addresses which are nothing more than guesses. It costs next to nothing to send out spam so in the eyes of a spammer it's a legitimate tactic.

Not saying what you're suggesting's not happened, just saying you need to be sure of your facts and not act on supposition.

I would err to the side of caution here, similarly I've used email addys once off for rego/security purposes and received emails back from 3rd parties.

 

[GPLama]

"Stuart Lamble" wrote in message...
> very least, BV has a leak in their email address database. It's possible
> that they're selling addresses, but there's definitely a whiff of
> incompetence in their IT staff at the very least.
>

What!? Incompetent IT staff? How could this be?.. in an industry with such
high standards and regulations this is unthinkable.. </dreaming>


cheers,
GPL

 

[GPLama]

tactic from my boss: use a single address for each thing you 'sign up'
for... easy to do if you have your own domain/mail server etc..

BV: [email protected]
TGI Friday: [email protected]
etc..

You can then trace these with ease.. Lots of fun - and simply blacklist that
recipient addr if they do end up spamming away... and if they are an .au
company, use your rights to rip them a new one...


cheers
GPL

 

[EuanB]

I would err to the side of caution here, similarly I've used email addys once off for rego/security purposes and received emails back from 3rd parties.

I must be blessed. I've been using the same email address for over ten years now and rarely recieve more than twenty spams in a day.

If an email lands in my Inbox then it's likely as not spam, it takes me about minute every third day or so to purge my Inbox. I find that much more convenient than changing email addresses all the time or engaging in the anti-spam arms race.

 

[Stuart Lamble]

On 2005-10-10, EuanB <[email protected]> wrote:
> I must be blessed. I've been using the same email address for over
> ten years now and rarely recieve more than twenty spams in a day.

Unfortunately, Monash Uni publishes staff email addresses on the Web. My
"main" address is now all over the shop for spammers; I have, right now,
87 messages in the "junk" folder, out of about a hundred or so messages
in total over the weekend (not counting the several dozen auto generated
messages that have relatively little useful information, but which
aren't really spam, either.)

> If an email lands in my Inbox then it's likely as not spam, it takes
> me about minute every third day or so to purge my Inbox. I find that
> much more convenient than changing email addresses all the time or
> engaging in the anti-spam arms race.

You're either very lucky, or you haven't had your email address forcibly
exposed. I'm still getting a fair amount of junk to an email address
that I haven't used in nearly ten years. (Might as well just send
everything sent there to /dev/null ...)

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

 

[Jules]

GPLama wrote:
> tactic from my boss: use a single address for each thing you 'sign up'
> for... easy to do if you have your own domain/mail server etc..
>
> BV: [email protected]
> TGI Friday: [email protected]
> etc..
>
> You can then trace these with ease.. Lots of fun - and simply blacklist that
> recipient addr if they do end up spamming away... and if they are an .au
> company, use your rights to rip them a new one...

A similar tactic for those who don't run their own mail domains:
http://www.killmail.net/

(disclosure: yes, it's mine)

Jules

 

[GPLama]

"Jules" wrote in message ...
>
> A similar tactic for those who don't run their own mail domains:
> http://www.killmail.net/
>
> (disclosure: yes, it's mine)

arh cool... thatd be a good source of email for building up anti-spam rule
sets with!

cheers,
GPL

 

[Peter McCallum]

Jules <[email protected]> wrote:

> GPLama wrote:
> > tactic from my boss: use a single address for each thing you 'sign up'
> > for... easy to do if you have your own domain/mail server etc..
> >
> > BV: [email protected]
> > TGI Friday: [email protected]
> > etc..
> >
> > You can then trace these with ease.. Lots of fun - and simply blacklist that
> > recipient addr if they do end up spamming away... and if they are an .au
> > company, use your rights to rip them a new one...
>
> A similar tactic for those who don't run their own mail domains:
> http://www.killmail.net/
>
> (disclosure: yes, it's mine)
>
> Jules

or you can use a yahoo mail disposable address

--
Peter McCallum
Mackay Qld AUSTRALIA

 

[Bleve]

Stuart Lamble wrote:
> On 2005-10-10, EuanB <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I must be blessed. I've been using the same email address for over
> > ten years now and rarely recieve more than twenty spams in a day.
>
> Unfortunately, Monash Uni publishes staff email addresses on the Web. My
> "main" address is now all over the shop for spammers; I have, right now,
> 87 messages in the "junk" folder, out of about a hundred or so messages
> in total over the weekend (not counting the several dozen auto generated
> messages that have relatively little useful information, but which
> aren't really spam, either.)

I have the same email address that I had in 1992, and have been
a prolific poster to USENET etc. I've never tried to hide
my identity. I run my
own mail server, and a combination of clamav and spamassassin on
sendmail and
thunderbird's junkmail filters work very well.

I also run numerous mail servers at my client sites, and we run DSPAM
or spamassassin ... DSPAM is a very good spam filter, in combination
with
clamav it blocks just about everything we don't want to get - same
deal,
no hidden identities, email addresses everywhere, whois records -
the whole lot ...

 

[Flying Echidna]

On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 21:49:40 GMT, Stuart Lamble
<[email protected]> wrote in aus.bicycle:

>Logged in this morning. The usual deluge of spam. Had a close look at
>two of them ... hm. They were sent to an email address that I used to
>register with Bicycle Victoria, and which I never used anywhere else.

That's what Hotmail is for isn't it? I keep a hotmail account just to
give to businesses and strangers and when the spam gets too much I
just abandon it. Who cares if these businesses give out your address
then?


Regards
Prickles

 

[Peter McCallum]

Jules <[email protected]> wrote:

> > or you can use a yahoo mail disposable address
> >
>
> mmm? What's that? Surely they're not doing disposable email as it
> would be rather contrary to their business model.
>
> (presumably you're not referring to the process of signing up to create
> a regular yahoo mail account)

What you do is set up a yahoo.com.au account. When you've done that go
to the mail options page and look for:

"AddressGuard
Create and manage disposable email addresses to defend your primary
address against spam."

The good thing about yahoo.com.au addresses is that the account can be
accessed from a pop server using your normal email client rather than
having to use a web browser or microsoft product like hotmail. Make sure
you sign up for a yahoo.com.au account, not yahoo.com to make this
feature available.

Peter
--
Peter McCallum
Mackay Qld AUSTRALIA

 

[Flying Echidna]

On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 12:56:22 +1000, EuanB
<[email protected]> wrote in aus.bicycle:

>I must be blessed. I've been using the same email address for over
>ten years now and rarely recieve more than twenty spams in a day.

I was in a similar position with the same email address from the late
80s until just over a year ago. Over the final year/18 months the spam
increased from about 20 a week to 250 a DAY which just about made the
address unusable. I can only conclude that my address had somehow got
on a CD in the USA because the spam increased exponentially over a
very short period

Since then I only give out a hotmail address except to friends and
relations. This seems to work well and Hotmail has a pretty good spam
filter (probably because they generate a lot of it)


Regards
Prickles

 

[JayWoo]

TGI Friday: [email protected]

Are you dreaming of hamburgers?