Quote:
Originally Posted by R Jones
Be aware that dictionary attacks do occur and that even addresses that haven't been created yet can get spam - which of course starts as soon as the address goes live. If your address is an alphanumeric combination it can easily be created on a purely random basis by software designed to churn out all possible combinations of digits and letters for popular domains like hotmail, btinternet.com etc.
The receipt of spam on an email address is not itself proof that the address has been passed to a third party.
Also be aware that anyone you ever emailed using that address, has that address on their machine, and if they get infected by an email harvesting bit of malware, will be responsible for that address getting harvested. (which is why I hate round robin emails that put my address along with a hundred others in the Cc or To fields).
From what you have said it is not clear that VM sold your address.
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With all due respect what you are saying about a random attack is simply not possible. If you actually took the time and worked out the maths you would realised that even for a 5 character alpha-numeric string there are 60 million combinations. If the spammer sent 2 emails per second it will still take a year to complete the send.
Furthermore I run several domains and I've never seen the type of spam you indicate. I've seen dictionary and name combinations and even some name + numeric but never random.
The email I chose was longer than 5 characters and random. I never used it other than to do the test. There is every reason to *suggest* it leaked, but no *evidence*.