Spam coming from Phandroid

[mixpix]

I have an email account setup that is just for this website. I do this for every website that I signup with so I know when spam bots get a hold of my email and start sending the crap my way. It also gives me a way to let websites know when they've started to become spammers or enable spammers.

I want everyone to know that I have been receiving a few emails a week for about a month or so now from the address that is dedicated to the Phandroid Newsletter service. Which means their newsletter service allows spam bots to harvest email address that are signed up to it. I contacted Phandroid about two weeks ago about this issue, I have still not received a response.

Today I removed myself from the mailing list and contacted them about it again. I highly suggest that others remove themselves from the Phandroid newsletter until this issue has been resolved.

Because of my email setup I can say that I do no get spam from any of the other websites that I have an accounts on, so don't give me some "that's the internet for you" line, because it's crap. LOCK DOWN YOUR SERVICE. Please!

Thank you.

 

[Slug]

I'm confused.... is this mail from the Newsletter mailing list (which you knowingly signed up to) or from another source? If the former then by definition it's not spam as you opted-in, and can simply remove yourself from the list (as you have done).

 

[reinbeau]

I was going to say - that's how I read it, too. You signed up for newsletters, how can you call it spam??

 

[Frisco]

I have an email account setup that is just for this website. I do this for every website that I signup with so I know when spam bots get a hold of my email and start sending the crap my way. It also gives me a way to let websites know when they've started to become spammers or enable spammers.

I want everyone to know that I have been receiving a few emails a week for about a month or so now from the Phandroid Newsletter service. I contacted Phandroid about two weeks ago about this issue, I have still not received a response.

Today I removed myself from the mailing list and contacted them about it again. I highly suggest that others remove themselves from the Phandroid newsletter until this issue has been resolved.

Because of my email setup I can say that I do no get spam from any of the other websites that I have an accounts on, so don't give me some "that's the internet for you" line, because it's crap. LOCK DOWN YOUR SERVICE. Please!

Thank you.

In order to receive what you're referring to as the "spam" newsletter service, you would have had to go to the Phandroid.com site and clicked the Phandroid Newsletter "click here" link and then filled in your AF user name and email address, then clicked the "sign me up" button.

Opt out at the same site.

 

[Roze]

OP, question: are you getting emails that are NOT Pandroid article related from the phandroid newsletter email? I believe this is your complaint right?

 

[Frisco]

OP, question: are you getting emails that are NOT Pandroid article related from the phandroid newsletter email? I believe this is your complaint right?

He'll hopefully answer for himself, but I took that notion as a "no" when I read, "I have been receiving a few emails a week for about a month or so now from the Phandroid Newsletter service."

Could be mistaken, I suppose.

 

[Roze]

The thing is if he subscribed to the Phandroid newsletters, he'll get EVERY news article that Phandroid published. This means that he'll get on average 5-10 emails a day!

 

[Frisco]

The thing is if he subscribed to the Phandroid newsletters, he'll get EVERY news article that Phandroid published. This means that he'll get on average 5-10 emails a day!

Wow.

I've never subscribed, is there a provision for getting them at certain increments, such as twice per week, etc?

 

[mixpix]

Yes I am getting spam from OTHER sources sent to my email address. I don't use the address for anything else and it has never been given out to any other site.

I have my email setup as phandroid@exampledomain.com (example cause I'm not going to give out the real one...)

I'm getting emails from GoodPharma.CA3@yahoo.com, etc. trying to sell me Viagra and other crap.

WHY would I think that the Phandroid news letters are spam??? holy crap. lol

 

[Frisco]

WHY would I think that the Phandroid news letters are spam??? holy crap. lol

Well, I think news letters are spam if I did not subscribe to them. Spam can often be disguised as a newsletter, blog feed, "alert," etc. It is not difficult to think that a new user of Phandroid would inadvertently put their newsletter in that spam category, especially if they'd forgotten about signing up or whatever.

At any rate, the site admins read in this Suggestion/Feedback forum, so you can be sure there will be discussion about what you've posed in here.

 

[Caddyman]

you know you can get spam to an email address without using it ever right? like go to gmail and make an address, and do nothing else, don't ever use it, you will get spam in it. spammers use lists, they also use automated programs that guess at email addresses and send blindly. if they dont get a return notice they know it is good and send more.

How do spammers harvest email addresses ?

 

[Slug]

I have my email setup as phandroid@exampledomain.com (example cause I'm not going to give out the real one...)

I'm getting emails from GoodPharma.CA3@yahoo.com, etc. trying to sell me Viagra and other crap.

Are the spam mails addressed specifically to phandroid@exampledomain or to randomaddressee@exampledomain? The reason I ask is that I use the same system and have never received unwanted mail to the Phandroid-registered address, but I do receive around a dozen a week to various random addressees @mydomain.

 

[mixpix]

Just so everyone understands what's going on here...

1. Phandroid's Newsletter service allows spam bots to harvest email addresses.
2. These emails are from spammers email addresses, not from phandroid's email service.

After dealing with tons of spam coming in on a Yahoo email account I chose to get my own domain name and fight back against spam. If you only use one email address, for example email@yahoo.com, you can't tell what website was actually sending you the spam or letting your email be harvested.

By using a personal domain name, I can setup an email address for each and every website I visit. The emails all dump into one inbox, but they display the different email addresses.

This way I can tell specifically when a website becomes corrupted or my email becomes harvested. (because the email will come directly from the email address I have assigned to it).

It gives me a way of fighting back against spam and a tool that I can alert web admins to security flaws.

The emails I am getting are directly sent to my phandroid email address. They are spam for pills/offers/etc, they are not at all Phandroid related.

I have unsubscribed to the Phandroid newsletter, but the damage is already done and I still receive emails. Now I have to redirect the address to a "dead end" account so that it seems that my account no longer exists and hopefully the emails will eventually stop.

--------------------

At least with this method I can kill off email addresses that become compromised. If I was using a yahoo account I would just have to put up with the spam because there is no course of action I could take.

 

[Rob]

We've never ever ever ever EVER given e-mail addresses to ANY 3rd party. EVER. There are only 2 possibilities:

--Spam bots randomly guessed the address
--Aweber's databases were compromised

The latter is entirely possible:
How We’ve Addressed The Recent Data Compromise

We do everything we can to keep our user's e-mail addresses private and would NEVER sell them to a 3rd party. I'm sincerely sorry if a lack in security at Aweber has caused our readers and members to receive spam mail, and if this is the case, perhaps we should look into using a different service provider.

That being said, this is the first I've ever heard of our subscribers getting mail they didn't ask to receive.

 

[Frisco]

I test for spam sources in a similar fashion as noted above, different email addresses for different forums, subscription services, PayPal, distrowatch, etc.

Nothing has come to the email I use for AF, except for those members I've given that address to.

Fwiw, my XDA email remains clean, as does one other Android forum, but the email I use for my Blackberry forum account has sucked up tons of spam on a daily basis, never ending.

 

[mixpix]

Sorry didn't see the replies. I signed up for the list, but androidforums database was hacked/scanned and my email was added to spam lists. So I get all sorts of non-androidforum emails. Recently I've been getting one about my old password (now changed), which they hacked and now have it in plain text in the email.

The servers were hacked at some point.

 

[mikedt]

Sorry didn't see the replies. I signed up for the list, but androidforums database was hacked/scanned and my email was added to spam lists. So I get all sorts of non-androidforum emails. Recently I've been getting one about my old password (now changed), which they hacked and now have it in plain text in the email.

The servers were hacked at some point.

Unless they've been hacked again? I believe this was eight years ago, in 2010. And if you've changed your password since then, you should be aright.