Re: how spammers got my email?? (was: how spammers got my email?? {Warning for dialup users, this has an attachment})

From: Stefan Kanthak (postmaster_at_[127.0.0.1)
Date: 09/10/05 

Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 19:20:54 +0200

"Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE" <franksaunders@mvps.org> wrote:

Your Reply-To: is not funny!

> "Patrick Dickey" <pd1ckey43@msn.com.removethis> wrote in message
> news:uoEpuqXtFHA.3236@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl
> >
> > As you'll notice I've included a valid reply to address with this
> > post. but I'll keep my "munged" from e-mail intact. Even though I'm
> > guessing that the bots are also harvesting valid "Reply To" e-mail
> > addresses as well as other e-mail addresses.
> >
> > Have a nice weekend.
>
> Spambots check Reply To also.

All From:-addresses of every single newsgroup can be harvested with just
one single command given to the NNTP server, but to get the Reply-To: a
harvester has to fetch (the headers of) every single posting.
This consumes time and bandwidth and is AFAIK not worth the effort.

On the other hand there were some viruses which took From: and Reply-To:
from postings they fetched themselves.

Spambots can and may harvest Reply-To: too, but the volume of SPAM I get
to my (single) Reply-To: address is less than about 5% of the SPAM I get
to (multiple) From: addresses.
If you have an own domain and use this as FQDN in your Message-ID: you'll
notice how "dumb, deaf and blind" spammers/harvesters really are: they'll
send their SPAM to Message-IDs too!
Conclusion: anything that looks like an email address will be abused!

Stefan