Did spamcops database get compromised?

[EricM]

Like many others i own a domain name, and whenever i register for a service i use a unique email address at that domain.

eg. spamcop[at]domain.com

This way if that website gives its database to spammers i know where they got it.

I noticed that im getting spam to the email i gave to spamcop a few years ago.

Anyone else notice this?

[Miss Betsy]

Yes, there are others who have noticed spam to unique addresses created by them for spamcop. Unfortunately, the email addresses, like yours, are easily 'guessable' or used by others. Spammers take addresses they have harvested and 'mix and match' with other domain names as well as purely guesswork and programs that generate lots of different combinations.

See this topic - particularly the last few posts.

Miss Betsy

[rconner]

As Miss Betsy alludes, spammers have ways of finding out deliverable e-mail addresses that do not require "tapping in to databases."

Insofar as receipt of spam is concerned, spamcop.net is no different from any other mail provider; there's no "magic force field" around spamcop.net that deters spam attempts. In fact, since spamcop.net addresses are designed expressly to receive spam mail (for filtering), spamcop.net probably does not routinely reject spam (as many retail ISP's spam filters do) -- I'm just guessing here, I have no inside knowledge.

You might think that spammers would prune spamcop.net addresses from their lists, knowing that these spams will be accurately identified and inevitably reported, but logic is not necessarily the ruling temperament for most of these folks.

-- rick