How Does This Happen?

[Richard Flanders]

I think email accounts must be the easiest thing to hack there is. I get a lot of emails, supposedly from people on my list. They're easy to recognize and are always some kind of product ad. I always thought someone had hacked MY list but was told that it was the other persons list that was hacked, which means I have a lot of friends who have been hacked. It's either that or the email providers sell lists. Nothing would surprise me these days. I don't trust any of them. AOL, facebook, google, xxxxx fill in the blanks; they'll all sell lists if someone is willing to pay for them. That's my operating assumption. I'd be pissed too Dean. Getting a phone number is odd. You can barely get that using the people search engines these days unless you pay for it. Used to be you could get everything using the "Free White Pages" engine; now they all want to charge for it.

[OH Osthaus]

Lots of scams and viruses hack into address books.

Outlook was a common one to get into. I have had a couple via AOL- got one once from a friends address that said he was in Scotland and had been robbed and needed me to wire him money.

So I turned and asked. Are you in Scotland?


But. For an otherwise ligitimate business to pull such a stunt is unpardonable