Sudden SPAM avalanche on Gmail

[cameo]

Anybody else noticed it in the last couple days?

 

[Nil]

Anybody else noticed it in the last couple days?

Not me.

 

[Paul]

Anybody else noticed it in the last couple days?

The last place you registered with a Gmail address,
could have sold the address to a spammer. Sometimes the
delay from registration, until the first spam arrives,
is 30 days or so.

Paul

 

[Steve Hayes]

Not me.

Nor me.

 

[The Seabat]

Not me. But if I were you I would report it to Google. 'Cause everyone
knows that they are a responsible, caring, proactive group that will
take care of your problem right away! (trying to remove tongue from
cheek)

 

[VanguardLH]

The last place you registered with a Gmail address,
could have sold the address to a spammer. Sometimes the
delay from registration, until the first spam arrives,
is 30 days or so.

It's also a good bet that if an e-mail address was used to register at
some site and it is that site that culled the e-mail address to sell off
to spammers then it's also possible that the OP, as with many users,
uses their same login credentials at that bad site that they use
everywhere else. That means the OP's Gmail account and every other
account they have where they've been using the same login credentials
can be abused. A *different* login should be used at each site and
STRONG passwords should always be used.


Cameo,

As for doling out a valid (monitored) e-mail address for some site's
registration, I always use an alias. No, that that stupidity at Yahoo
where an alias is merely appending on a word to your existing e-mail
address and anyone looking at that Yahoo alias can figure out what is
your real e-mail address there. I mean something like SpamGourmet.com
or Sneakemail (but the latter is no longer free). Those alias services
are not merely forwarding services. If you reply to a forwarded e-mail,
you'll be divulging your real e-mail address configured in your client.
SpamGourmet and Sneakemail alter the From and Reply-To headers to point
back to their server so when you reply to an aliased e-mail then it goes
back through their service. They strip out all the SMTP headers so it
looks like your reply originated from their service. That way you
guarantee your alias gets used in the From and Reply-To headers in your
reply, not your real e-mail address from your client. They even scan
the body of your replies to replace your real e-mail address with your
alias. You can reply to aliased e-mails without divulging your real
e-mail address. The other party sent to your alias and they also see
you replied from that same alias.

Sneakemail is a managed aliasing service. You have to login to create
an alias where you can decide how long it survives. SpamGourmet lets
you define aliases on the fly. You don't have to log into your account
to create an alias. When you want to create an alias, you can do so as
you're somewhere that wants an e-mail address and just make one up right
there. You can use the default expiration (how many e-mails can come
through that alias), specify the max receive count in the alias, or even
allow an indefinite number of e-mails through an alias. If the alias
gets abused, you can kill it off, change your account to require an
additional keyword (if someone guessed the default aliasing scheme), or
just abandon that aliasing account (first zero out or kill all aliases
to be polite to the service) and create a new one.

Each sender gets a unique alias. That way, if it ever gets abused
(i.e., spammed) then I know exactly who abused the trust. I can kill
off that alias to eliminate any further spam or just let it expire so it
gets automatically killed (the default is 3 received e-mails through an
alias but I can change that in the account or when I create the alias).
It's a great way to get online coupons without having to be concerned
about getting spammed later. If I decide to trust a sender because the
alias has not been abused (usually after 6 months) then I might update
my account with them to give them my real e-mail address, or I just
continue using the alias since I can allow an indefinite number of
e-mails through an alias from a particular sender.

Stop giving out your real e-mail address to every joker that wants it.
Instead give them an alias. I've signed up for lots of online stuff
where I *know* (and they even proclaim in their terms) that they will
spam you but I've yet to get bothered by spam. The expiration count is
very low (3) but I can make it even lower, like 1 (to get a confirmation
e-mail needed to complete registration) or 2 (in case the first one is a
"Welcome to our site" message), plus I can change the count at any time
(to up the count or zero it out to eliminate any further e-mails through
that alias). It doesn't how well known is a company or its site.
Gamespot is well known with gamers but you WILL get spammed in about 3-5
days after giving them an e-mail address.

 

[cameo]

The last place you registered with a Gmail address,
could have sold the address to a spammer. Sometimes the
delay from registration, until the first spam arrives,
is 30 days or so.

There is a good chance that you are onto something there. Maybe Yelp or
ustream.tv. Those were that last ones that I recall. Well, at least
Google does filter virtually all of them into the spam folder.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

SpamGourmet.com

Thanks.

 

[Jordon]

Anybody else noticed it in the last couple days?

I sure have. I used to get only a small handful a day, In the last
week it's been about 50 a day, most of which start with the word
Enlargement.

 

[Nil]

I sure have. I used to get only a small handful a day, In the last
week it's been about 50 a day, most of which start with the word
Enlargement.

I said before that I hadn't noticed any change. Now that I think about
it, I may be getting more than I used to. For the past few days, I've
been getting maybe 3 or 5 per day, compared to the past several months
when I got no more than one per day and usually none. Not close to what
you're experiencing, but there does seem to be a slight increase for
me.

Most of them are advertising medications that can be ordered from
Russian web sites.

 

[cameo]

I sure have. I used to get only a small handful a day, In the last
week it's been about 50 a day, most of which start with the word
Enlargement.

Yes, those are the ones I've been getting, too.

 

[Jordon]

Yes, those are the ones I've been getting, too.

And just like that, it stopped. I'm back to about 5 a day, since
Friday.

 

[cameo]

And just like that, it stopped. I'm back to about 5 a day, since
Friday.

Same here. Any idea why?

 

[Jordon]

Same here. Any idea why?

No idea.

 

[Nil]

No idea.

I would guess that the spam was mostly coming from the same source, and
Google finally adjusted their spam-catcher's logic to accommodate it,

 

[John Williamson]

I would guess that the spam was mostly coming from the same source, and
Google finally adjusted their spam-catcher's logic to accommodate it,

Or the instigators have closed down the bot-net for now.