Getting spam without giving out email address

[vivalasvegas]

Hi,
I have this test Gmail account I only gave to one person. I'm constantly getting spam emails. The name of this account is not popular ([e-mail]). Does this mean that the person I gave this email address to is responsible for the spam emails?

Thanks.
Dan

[DamonHD]

Hi,

No, the address could have been tried by brute force and the SPAMmer got lucky, or the name can have leaked some other way, ie someone with a packet sniffer watched it in a normal unencrypted mail or HTTP session.

So no, not for sure.

Rgds

Damon

[arran]

Have you ever used "google pages"?

arran.

[LifeinAsia]

The person you sent it to my not be directly responsible, but he/she may have gotten a virus that grabbed all the e-mail addresses located on that computer, including the addresses for anyone who ever sent e-mail to him/her.

[engine]

I'll go for the get lucky approach. I've seen unused gmail accounts get hit.

[vivalasvegas]

Thanks, I'll take your advice and see this as pure coincidence.

[engine]

BTW, remember, someone else's account could still have been compromised. ;)

[davathar]

I think a lot of the brute force attackers may just take all the first parts of email addresses they already have and team them up with at hotmail, at gmail, at msn and so on. So if you had firstnamelastname at some other site and it got on a spammer list, they just occasionally run their list on gmail.com too.

[zbroyar]

Hi,

Actually, you've already got your answers. I just want to generalize it for a little: here are billions of ways to have your address compromised. From having some kind of spyware on your or your friend's machines to being intercepted by some filters (from packet sniffers to special-purpose emails processors).

[hu12]

if you ever recieved a web page to your gmail from your friend, or a forwarded page like that could also be the cause.