Hmm, we need to keep in mind how SMTP and POP 
actually works. An outgoing email is wrapped in what is 
called an SMTP envelope. That envelope contains the 
actual address that the message is addressed to. 
When the message is received and delivered into the 
recipient's POP3 mail box, the SMTP envelope is 
stripped and discarded. The TO information in the 
message (as you see it when you get your mail) 
doesn't have to have *any* connection with the address 
it was actually sent to.

David
dvjones(at)ksbe.edu

On 30 Jan 2003, at 8:40, Octavian Rasnita wrote:

> I don't think that's a valid explanation.
> 
> Just think how many combinations of email addresses could
> be on just a single domain and you will see that they will
> need to send a lot of messages and this will take years.
> The result could be that that server is configured to
> receive all the non existent email messages in a separate
> inbox.
> 
> The spammers use a spider like that for indexing web pages
> for a search engine to get the email addresses from all
> the web pages. They use to use a query to Google or other
> search engine for specific topics, and this will get web
> pages with a certain content....
> 
> Teddy,
> Teddy's Center: http://teddy.fcc.ro/
> Email: orasnita(at)home.ro
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alex Storey" <alexstorey(at)yahoo.com>
> To: <hwg-techniques(at)mail.hwg.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 8:12 PM
> Subject: RE: Yahoo (How beaconing works)-how spammers get
> addresses
> 
> 
> I was doing some reading on how spammers work and came
> across an explanation. It's more of a shotgun approach
> rather than harvesting by bots. Basically what they do is
> extrapolate account names and send out literally thousands
> of e-mails. The ones that don't bounce back are valid.
> (Though in the case of Yahoo, a bot could easily cruise
> their member directory, scoop up the handles and tack on
> (at)yahoo.com.)
> 
> -Alex
> your friendly local luker :)
> 
> --- hwg-techniques-digest
> <owner-hwg-techniques-digest(at)mail.hwg.org> wrote:
> I have also seen spam mail that came to me with all
> the addresses being to my ISP, as though a script was
> making random addresses by scrambling letters. For
> example, taking my name as an example, and yahoo for the
> ISP (just an example), there was mail for lob(at)yahoo.com,
> lon(at)yahoo.com, lonn(at)yahoo.com, loan(at)yahoo.com,
> lona(at)yahoo.com, lonna(at)yahoo.com, etc.
> 
> These are only examples.  Someone using various letter
> combinations to find addresses at a particular ISP. Some
> will probably bounce back, but some might hit the mark.
> Does anyone know about this kind of email address
> harvesting?
> 
> Lonna
 

• Web Designer Courses
• Off the Shelf Training Courses

HWG hwg-techniques mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA