Here’s an “is it just me?” question: Over the last three weeks or so, I’ve seen a blitz of spam to my main email address that I have never seen before. The come-ons are the same, mostly, but with one significant difference: They’re addressed to me by name, and they use my middle name. Some use my home address as well. I find this vaguely disquieting, even though I know that information is public, somewhere or other (but not on Google. There are zero matches for my full name on Google). Associating my full name with my email–not such an easy trick, which leads me to believe that somewhere or other I made this information available (or perhaps some “secure” database somewhere was compromised).
Anyway, back to the question: Anybody else getting personalized spam.
My old vanity domain email address used to get tons of spam–a result of foolishly posting my email address on a contact webpage. Since setting it up so that Google handles that account I barely ever see spam.
I have a lot of spam friends too. Maybe we should rent the Superdome and have a party for a few of them. Wet and Wild Coeds can get with the 20% off Viagra crowd. Bring a video camera. Most of my spam remains the good fortune type. Never a “Hello Mr.Breek” or anything like that.
My spam has exploded as well in the last few weeks; however, mine is not particularly personal. Nobody is using my middle name. I suppose I am discouraged to hear that a there is a new wave of personalized spam I will see soon in my future.
This isn’t what you’re talking about, but recently, I’ve been getting spams that go like:
mariecarnes be the man every woman desires
Which, at first, I found to be quite hilarious. But, after a while, I’m starting to get a complex. Even though I’ve been careful, I assume the all lower case with no space came from some email harvester. I don’t know.
Dan, that your home address and middle name are being used is indicates more than just some email harvester. That is very upsetting.
None of the recent spam to my email addresses is personal. Most of them want me to impress the ladies with blue pills or Rolex replicas.