keeping an email address 'clean'

[Conor]

I have an email that I use. I bought a domain a few years back an use <myname>@<thisdomain>.co.uk. It's about as personalised as I can get. Although this domain is not hosted anywhere I have set up email forwarding. I only use this address for trusted sources.

Until last week it was a 'clean' email address and I never got any spam. In the last week, after 4 years of having it set up, I've received 2 nigerian 419 scam emails. This makes me worry that this address is now 'public' and liable to get all sorts of spam now.

Is there any way I can:
a) find out who 'leaked' the email address (i use it on a couple of websites for ordering goods - supposedly secure and i did tick the "don't keep me informed...." box)
b) put spam blocks on a non-hosted, forwarded email? I'd be really pissed off if I had to stop using this address cos of spam.

cheers
conor

[Incubus]

I wonder if you've got a domain whether it's worth using seperate email addresses for whatever you do online, and getting them all to forward to your one mail box.

I would imagine that if you knew which address you'd used for which store/site then you'd be able to trace it back...

Not a very practical solution I know, but it might help find the culprit!

[Mark Snowdon]

but thats what I do

my hoster provides full forwarding so when I collect I get all emails into my domain.

I make email addresses up all the time, the address on my cw subs is [email protected] and when I am dealing with online sales etc I give them [email protected]

recommendations -
check the registrar that holds your domain to see what address they hold for you and where that is published. try doing whois and such like on your domain - you may find it listed including your address. Nominet or whoever had their dbase copied recently (look in the reg for anyone interested) and much spamming followed.

Check your web browser settings especially the anonymous ftp - do not let it send your real email address as password.

do not publish it anywhere - If I remember you are at mullen or mcmullen ? EZboard gets scammed.

Dont trust ebay - I got loads of spam after buying something on one of theior auctions

[Mark Snowdon]

conors email

would this be mullen or mcmullen ?

you once posted it on here.....and spammers scan ezboard.

look at the mail headers and see who the recipient is. usually mail forwarding passes [email protected] to you

the domain names are held by registrars and can be looked up, plus one of the uk domain registries was hacked recently and a spammer got the full list.

when I have to give an email to a company i use something that identifies them, eg valuelist get [email protected]. I pick them all up so I see it, but if spam starts comin through I know who leaked.

[Mark Snowdon]

Spooky !!

that last one was posted this afternoon....

[AtW]

Re: Spooky !!

dont just to conclusions: it could be easy dictionary attack, ie they know you got domain, so they try to send mail to every most likely first name you have there. Or, you may have "catch-all" account which would get all mail from all non-existing accoutns on your site, just take it easy.

[Conor]

Re: Spooky !!

feck me mark you're like a bloody elephant. i did post it here once but only for about the 5 minutes it took before you told me to take it down. i've posted it a couple of times since in :

<firstname at lastname dot co dot uk> format. maybe they are wise to that too??

AtW, not sure about the dictionary attack, i'm not James, Bob or Edward. Most people spell my name wrong anyway.

thanks for you help all. i'll adpot the approach you suggest - eg [email protected], [email protected] etc

Cheers
conor

[roger rabbit]

Re: Spooky !!

anyone wishing to send an email to me - spam or not can contact me at:

smellycunt@wherethe****aremypants.com