SPAM on new email boxes

I would like to know why brand new emailboxes on dreamhost accounts very quickly get lots of spam.

On multiple domains I have setup multiple new email addresses for my own use as well as clients. None of these are catch-all addresses, and in many cases they are completely new domains and new email addresses.

Bottom line is they almost always all get lots of spam within a short period of time. How can this happen? It seems like there is a spammer within the DH company, but I hate to accuse that. Please explain how this is possible.

I am dissatisfied with this aspect of hosting with DH.

You don't have those emails set up w/a catchall do you? I have several emails with dreamhost, and one, that is not published, that i have had for over a year, received no spam. others, that are published get a little, but only a couple a week.

I would double check and make sure you don't have those emails set up w/the catchall. That I can see getting lots and lots of spam.

Otherwise, there may be other reasons...if you have your email set up on your site as email me ie. mailto:myemailname.mydomain.coma

I started using php on my pages to hide all email addresses from the bots and the like.

I, like you, so DISLIKE spammers...

hth

Thanks for the reply, but no to those questions.

1) Not catchall, just brand new - never before existed standalone addresses.

2) Not published anywhere.

b

> 2) Not published anywhere.

The domain is in whois and DNS. Much of my spam comes to my registrar contact emails, which is accessible to lots of spammers, all over.

'Course that doesn't guarantee it isn't somebody at DH. :-)

Regards,

BobS

This can happen because spammers can send to a DH mailbox without knowing its new domain name or the user part of the address, because the DH system will accept mail addressed direct to the mailbox e.g. m<easily-guessed>@<Dh-machinename>.dreamhost.com .

Whether it /has/ happened in your case can be determined by looking for an address of this form in the top Received: header field.

It's also possible that even a new domain might have been previously used, then expired, so it could be on spammers' lists already. Or even if the domain never existed before, if it's one that got used as a phony address by people registering for things, it might also be on lists.

-- Dan