Re:Mailinator.com: Anatomy of a Spammy Campaign
by Fnoord on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:19AM
(#17539815)
Some e-mail clients have plugins to make it very convenient to parse the unsubscribe link and do the rest of the dirty work when you click unsubscribe from within your client.
However the danger is that some of these are fake, and you might not remember what you signed up for. Then, the spammer knows that you clicked that link. They may learn to know your IP address, dox you further, etc. Or, worse, they can attempt to breach the security of your computer via your browser (0-day or otherwise).
A way to deal with this is using the + sign. Whenever you share your e-mail address knowingly, add the + sign with the address name sans (cc)TLD. Whenever someone e-mails you without the + sign they either harvested that address or they got it from you directly. So when you receive a spam e-mail you'd like to unsubscribe from not addressed to your + e-mail address, don't unsubscribe. You never signed up for it in the first place.
However the danger is that some of these are fake, and you might not remember what you signed up for. Then, the spammer knows that you clicked that link. They may learn to know your IP address, dox you further, etc. Or, worse, they can attempt to breach the security of your computer via your browser (0-day or otherwise).
A way to deal with this is using the + sign. Whenever you share your e-mail address knowingly, add the + sign with the address name sans (cc)TLD. Whenever someone e-mails you without the + sign they either harvested that address or they got it from you directly. So when you receive a spam e-mail you'd like to unsubscribe from not addressed to your + e-mail address, don't unsubscribe. You never signed up for it in the first place.