Spam increase at email address I use only for MacRumors

[svenmany]

This just started yesterday, May 27. I used to use the email address for other things, but for a couple of years now, only for MacRumors. Starting yesterday, I've been flooded with pornography spam. Has anyone else experienced the same? Any relevant developments at MacRumors that could explain this? This definitely could be coming from some past use of the email address, so this is not an accusation.

 

[Weaselboy]

I can't think of any way spammers could have gotten your email address from MacRumors.

I suspect the spammers just make up email addresses and blast them out to see how many don't bounce.

I have a secondary iCloud email address I have literally never once used, and I get some spam in that account.

 

[JonaM]

I have a unique address for Macrumors and no spam, so think it must be previous use

 

[NoBoMac]

^^^This, the previous use.

The account I use for MacRumors gets zero spam.

My primary email has been found in about five previous breaches on other sites over the years, but even that account gets very little spam on it (maybe three a day, at most, but generally zero per day). One thing that I think helps is that all my email apps have image loading disabled, so no tracking images phoning home that there is a live one on the receiving end. Spam goes into a e-black-hole and address eventually falls off the spammer's shared lists as no longer a "verified" address.

 

[svenmany]

It stopped today. I wonder what it was.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Yeah clearly spammers make up email addresses out of whole cloth and just “Try them.” My private domain will forward {anything}@mydomainname.com to me and I get spam/scam emails to totally random addresses like “Theodore@“ or “Dishwasher@“ which have never been used, will never be used. In fact the only reason I ever see them, is that I occasionally check the junk folder for incorrectly filtered email.