Discovery leaked my e-mail address
When I sign-up with a new service or get asked for my e-mail address, I ensure that I use a unique alias each time and rarely provide my personal address. This way I can easily filter my incoming messages, but also track sources of spam. If I receive spam on an address that I've only given out once before, then clearly that web service/store/bank/band did not protect my e-mail address like they claimed they would.
I received the following e-mail snippet two hours ago:
*** THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MAIL FROM AN UNMONITORED MAIL ADDRESS. PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MAIL ***
Welcome to SA Friends.NET
A profile has been automatically created for you to enable you to find your South African school, university and national service friends using our 100% free service.
Please log on to the site and complete your profile and school details now....
The recipient address? discovery@coda.co.za
Thank you, Discovery Group, for apparently breaching your privacy policy and sharing my e-mail address with the apparent scam that is SAFriends.Net. I don't know which is worse or who to continue ranting about.
Take a look at SAFriends.Net for yourself. Using the UK flag and what appears to be the old South African flag to identify "English" and "Afrikaans"? Look at their dating page!! What! The! Fuck! Look at their Chat Forum and especially it's terms of use which talks about "the jurisdiction of the appropriate federal or state courts of New Jersey, United States of America".
The SAFriends.Net domain whois lists "Umhlaba" as the registrant and admin contact, with the URL geomatics.com, which itself is a bunch of ads kak. I think they hijacked the Umhlaba name - I just called the number provided (27218722760) but reached the voicemail of an Afrikaans woman called Nina.
Anyway, I don't know where to go with this, but just to say that Discovery are a bunch of pricks and SAFriends.Net is a scam. Now you know. UPDATE [06/04]: This issue has been resolved thanks to the efforts of everyone at Discovery. The guilty party and their scam website are suffering the consequences.
Oh, and apparently consumer website HelloPeter.com is a scam, too! (via Muti) UPDATE [05/04]: Peter responds: Hellopeter.com: Scam or jam?
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9 Comments
lol! i’ve seen that photo of that chick on the dating page somewhere else before.. and that flag is the Dutch national flag isn’t it? bizarre.. i’m glad i’m with Discovery.. erm.
Robert: yeah but then I’d probably forget all of them :)
I like your thinking D, I had thought about this beofre, but at the time I gave up as I assumed that my email address was already being spammed and there would be no point. However there are always going to be new spammers and I guess it would be nice to know where they are getting my address from, even if it is a little late in the game. Glad it works bro, did you contact Discovery?
When signing up for any contract, be it with a bank, insurance, medical aid, etc. I always specifically leave the email and cell phone number fields blank. That way, these companies can’t spam me or try to send me electronic copies of statements or stuff that I’d rather have in paper format. If you need to reach me, post something to my physical address or call me on a landline. I prefer it old-skool like that.
Slightly related to the above, why do insurance companies (e.g. Outsurance, DialDirect) insist on having your ID number before providing you with an over-the-phone quote, before making any commitment towards taking out a policy? When it gets to that point in the conversation I make it clear that I won’t provide that info, and my only option then is to end the call.
Oh my gosh… that “dating” page is scary….
It’s been taken down (page not found)… luckily…
…
But if you dare to view it… it’s in the Cache…
http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:lS6kr9dko7wJ:www.safriends.net/dating.asp+http://www.safriends.net/dating.asp&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=za
Gag.
@Def_ZA: Very scary. What is interesting a few months ago an email address I used to register on the Clickatell website in 2003 got leaked out and I confronted them, and they were not even interested that they were either hacked or one of their staff members sold their client database.
I love the + aliasing so foobar+alias ends up in the foobar mailbox. Quite nifty. Coming to think about it so far, it’s only Clickatell and Mr Delivery that’s had their client databases stolen / sold to spammers.
i cant believe an internet specialist like yourself waste so much time on this, normally on all of our pc’s are a button called ‘del’ that stands for delete your moron , it seems like you have to much time on your hand.
next time you drove faster than 60 in a 60 zone remember you do more damage and harm than a person sending a mail to you. just delete the bloody thing
@jaco: I can’t believe you wasted your time telling me how I waste my time; such beautiful irony. Ethics and principle, Jaco. Obviously two words that are missing from your dictionary.
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03 April 2007
Robert05:29 am
Though I have no doubt this was the source of your spam, if you’re going to do this, you should use non-obvious aliases, to counter the dictionary spammers.