Eric writes:
Have you never created e-mail addresses without
ever making them public, and nevertheless note
that you get SPAM anyway?
Not that I can recall.
I did. I created more than one e-mail address
without ever making them public, and though I
note some of them receive SPAM!
Were the addresses along the lines of "postmaster," "info," or "webmaster,"
by chance?
How do the spammers find such addresses? Do
they automatically try all possible combinations
of firstname_lastname(_at_)some-well-known-domains(_dot_)com?
They must either harvest them or guess them. For non-obvious e-mail
addresses that are never published, they cannot practically do either of
these, and so the addresses will not be spammed.
Most people I know who do not post to USENET or put their addresses on Web
sites or post to mailing lists receive very little spam, whereas I receive
several hundred spams a day on the addresses that I've publicly released
(but none on other addresses).