GoSeigen wrote:XFool wrote:It does seem to neatly evade the strange fact that, down the years, some people claim to be plagued by scam phone calls/emails that are "unavoidable", while some of us claim to be virtually free of these pests.
OK, here's my quick list of reasons why an email address might get a lot of SPAM while others don't -- from my private and professional experience, not others' research:
Thanks - with my comments on those reasons:
GoSeigen wrote:-The hosting ISP has poor SPAM filtering or it is poorly configured by the user
I know nothing about this. How different are different ISPs, does anyone know? Has anyone ever attempted an analysis of this? In principle, if it is significant, a league table could be drawn up.
GoSeigen wrote:-The address has been published online
Definitely. This is a 'no brainer' and one way that would inevitably lead to SPAM. So much so that it can be taken as read.
GoSeigen wrote:-The address is vulnerable to dictionary attack (sales@domain.com, john@gmail.com)
-The address is on lists being circulated or sold, obtained from hacking, scraping or other means
Yes. But that only takes us back to the question: "Why are some on these lists and others apparently are not?"
My original email address was hosted by Yahoo! for a significant period.
GoSeigen wrote:-The address's owner was naive about SPAM: they replied to SPAM emails, tried clicking the unsubscribe link, failed to block inline images, left the preview function enabled in their email client etc
Yes. This would be my favoured reason wrt naive users. My rule with SPAM is never to do any of these things.
GoSeigen wrote:-The address is very old
Except that my old home email address originally dates from the Dot Com era and is still directing any incoming mail to my current email.
There is another aspect to this whole matter - a psychological angle. IMO it is a kind of general issue on the Internet: the problem of "representativeness"
Perhaps not receiving SPAM is actually the norm? But, on a BB where some people are complaining of SPAM, others looking on may feel it odd because they are not receiving SPAM. But they are not complaining of SPAM, because they are not receiving it, whereas those complaining are, because they are receiving SPAM!
Those receiving (and complaining of) SPAM now may not have been doing so last year and may not be doing so next year. Those not receiving (and complaining of) SPAM now may be doing so in the future, or may have been doing so in the past. e.g. Some years ago now, following a mistake in a mass emailing (SPAM?!) by a legitimate company, my then email account, up to then SPAM free, suffered SPAM for a couple of years - it came as no surprise that this was going to happen. But eventually (whether due to my actions or not!) things returned to 'normal' i.e. No SPAM.
My general point here - disputed by some - is that SPAM email etc. is clearly in general NOT "inevitable", not something we "just have to put up with". From my own direct experience over many years (1990s onwards), not receiving email/phone SPAM is the norm.
If other people disagree with this (direct experience) then AFAIAC it's up to them to explain why this is so in their case. Simply explaining how peoples' email addresses can be found out is not ultimately a full explanation.
