[ale] Warning - spamed on Bellsouth.net

[Jim]

Spammers don't get all e-mail addresses from the Internet. Many of them now 
use a technique for creating likely e-mail addresses. I get some spam sent to 
my e-mail address and a bunch of similar combinations. As you can see, my 
e-mail address is based on my name and it doesn't take too much logic to 
deduce similar e-mail addresses. So, if your BellSouth e-mail address was 
similarly based on your name, the spammer's software prbably just guessed it.

On Tuesday 10 September 2002 07:45 am, Jim Lynch wrote:
> A few months back I had to ditch my ISDN and get something else.  Since
> AT&T cable service is so horrid, I didn't go that way.  I tried to call
> them to talk about it but I was on hold for so long I gave up.  My only
> other option was DSL and Mindspring said I couldn't get it in my area.
> Funny, Bell South hooked me up post haste.  Anyway, I kept my mindspring
> account (I refuse to call them earthlink, but that's another story)
> since it would be too difficult to change email addresses.  It's only
> $9.95 a month and I hardly ever dial into them.
>
> To the purpose of this post.  For the first time, I configured an email
> client to check my bellsouth email.  To my amazement I had over 600
> emails!  All but 3 or 4 were spam.  The good ones were from Bell South.
> Did I say good?  Perhaps, "not true spam" would be better.
>
> Anyway, how in the hell did all the spammers get my email address?  I've
> never used it.  Is Bell South peddling its email list?



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