[PLUG] Spammer techniques question (fwd)

[Jason Dagit]

Could it be that they were just guessing?  Seems like they will try just
about anything.  If they were about find out about the mail server (I
don't think that would be so hard) they could then just go down a list of
commonly used user names...

Or can they actually harvest from a server?
Jason

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Rich Shepard wrote:

>   I cannot answer this question, sent by a friend of mine. Anyone here know
> the answer?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rich
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Do you or any of your fellow PLUGgers know how a spammer could harvest
> e-mail addressees right off my server? I have a couple addresses I set up a
> while ago but have never used or published, yet some spammers seem to have
> discovered them. Can they actually read the /etc/passwd file to get lists of
> users? How else (assuming I haven't been totally hacked) could they get this
> info? Or are these just lucky guesses? How can I tell them there's no one
> really there and that they are wasting their valuable time?
>
>
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