Re: [cobalt-users] More Spam To List Subscribers?

["Steven Werby" <steven-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The difference was, this is the only list I subscribe to with this address
> that has anything to do with web site hosting and that's who that email was
> targeted to.

Last year I had a dialup account through Mindspring.  Mindspring assigned me an
email address of werby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  I never used the email address to send
email and the only emails I got were my Mindspring invoices, until I started to
get spam.  The interesting thing about the spam was that every email sent to me
has exactly 20 email address listed in the headers and all of the email
addresses were of the form we*@mindspring.com.  It seems that either an insider
at Mindspring got a hold of the email addresses, Mindsprings systems were
exploited, or someone sent out mass emails to common_usernames@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Since only about 1,000 people in the US have my last name (werby), it's probably
safe to rule out the last option.

I also recently started to get spam at the email address I use for mailing
lists.  I wouldn't speculate how or where the spammers got it though.  This
list's archives are accessible to anyone and the former version of this list
archive is indexed by some search engines.  A search of Altavista for "Steven
Werby" turned up 200 pages, most of which are from the former version of this
list archive and most of which include my email address.

Steven Werby {steven-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx}