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Author Topic: How the heck did spam get in my school email?  (Read 4973 times)

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Offline Rhombicuboctahedron

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How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« on: December 04, 2012, 10:30:07 pm »
This is my school email, given to me by the school a few years ago. I have given it to sites I need for school, as well as a few trustworthy sites (like apple and adobe)
Then today I found a reciept for a gift card, bought by someone else, for $500, along with some links and such
I Googled, and found that others got it too, so, of course, fake
Again, I don’t know very much about email, but I thought if you never give it away, you can’t get spam
« Last Edit: November 13, 2013, 03:39:25 am by Rhombicuboctahedron »
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Offline shmibs

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2012, 10:53:46 pm »
your name could have been chosen at random rather than actually discovered somewhere. maybe they assumed that a school email address, because it is inherently "more important", would have a higher success rate of snagging people.
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Offline Rhombicuboctahedron

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2012, 10:55:07 pm »
But how did they get it?
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2012, 10:56:28 pm »
The companies most likely sold e-mail lists to other companies.
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Offline alberthrocks

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2012, 11:00:27 pm »
Quote from: DJ_O on December 04, 2012, 10:56:28 pm
The companies most likely sold e-mail lists to other companies.
Ehh, probably not a legitimate university. I don't think they would bend that low.

More likely the email address is public somewhere (university directory), and either a bot was able to read it out or an individual just looked up a random EDU email. Also, if you've published any papers, your educational email address will likely be exposed as well.
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Offline Rhombicuboctahedron

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2012, 11:40:54 pm »
Just remembered, you can find the emails of everyone in the school district by clicking send, so if it is possible for a bot to find that list, all it might take is one out of the 70,000 to accidentally give away their email to a bot.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2012, 01:27:20 am »
Quote from: alberthrocks on December 04, 2012, 11:00:27 pm
Quote from: DJ_O on December 04, 2012, 10:56:28 pm
The companies most likely sold e-mail lists to other companies.
Ehh, probably not a legitimate university. I don't think they would bend that low.

More likely the email address is public somewhere (university directory), and either a bot was able to read it out or an individual just looked up a random EDU email. Also, if you've published any papers, your educational email address will likely be exposed as well.
Well, he said he also gave his e-mail to sites like Adobe as well, not just school sites. But yeah, maybe it was leaked somewhere like when clicking send. I remember my mom started getting spam after someone sent a chain letter to her and some friends, where every e-mail address was shown, then she started getting spam.
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Offline SpiroH

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2012, 09:45:22 am »
well, all you need is to be a student (among perhaps thousands) at a university or a company to easily get hold of the community's mailing list and then if you've have a '$bound mindset' easily sell it for profit. So, it's not that hard for your e-mail to be easily leaked to the world. Take care with your emails. ;)
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Offline Eeems

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2012, 10:57:24 am »
This is why I have 6 emails ;P (soon to be 7. Just got to get the email server working for my domain)
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Offline Vijfhoek

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2012, 11:00:25 am »
Gmail's spam filter works perfectly for me.
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Offline Eeems

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Re: How the heck did spam get in my school email?
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2012, 11:01:49 am »
I've had some spam get through gmails filter before. It's quite good though.
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