[TowerTalk] Fwd: Unwanted crap msgs

[David Gilbert]

Not that rare at all, as others on the various ham radio lists have 
discovered in the last couple of months alone.  In any case, I've asked 
the original poster if the same (or similar) unwanted message went to 
others in his address book.  If he gives me an answer, we'll have ours.

Dave   AB7E


On 3/31/2012 8:43 PM, Al Kozakiewicz wrote:
> Occam's razor.
>
> The days of a virus harvesting emails from address books are largely over, though it certainly was common 10 years ago.
>
> There are dozens of ways spammers harvest email addresses.  An easy way to get a nexus of related people is from forwarded emails and is probably the most common method.  No hacking is involved and far less risk and work is required.  For example, David Gilbert posts something exceedingly witty to tower talk.  I find it worth repeating and forward it to every one of my 50 or so Irish cousins (literally - my mothers siblings bred like rabbits).  One of them forwards it on and at some point the email with the addresses of all the previous senders and recipients ends up in the hands of a spammer or email address seller.  That person can now spam all my cousins by spoofing my address.  He may not subscribe to tower talk, but knows that I do.  He also knows who my cousins send email to, and who they send email to.
>
> My computer did not need to be hacked.  I'm sure it still happens, but it is exceedingly rare.
>
> Al
> AB2ZY
>