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"It is, however, unsolicited "commercial" email. Via HN." Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought your email was available on your profile page for any

"It is, however, unsolicited "commercial" email. Via HN." Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought your email was available on your profile page for anyone to read and extract. So as far as I can see all this means is that someone is trawling HN profiles for email of likely startup employees and sending out email. How is this different from posting your email on any web page anywhere on the Internet? I would imagine if you publish your email on an investments discussion board you'd get spam about "lucrative investment opportunities". How is this any different? Publish your email id anywhere (including your own pages) and you'll get spam. How is this new? And what is with all the drama about "via HN"? "Shame" (EDIT: this has been edited in the submission. Originally it was just this one word on a line by itself) huh? Are you asking the spammer to feel shame? Or are you surprised spammers trawled HN and suggesting HN readers (or moderators) feel shame? (fwiw I got this message too. "Mark as spam". Done).

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
> Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought > your email was available on your profile page > for anyone to read and extract. Yes it is. > So as far as I can see all this means is that > someone is trawling HN profiles for email of > likely startup employees and sending out email. Almost. They are trawling HN profiles for emails of anyone on HN. Even a tiny amount of research would show that I'm not the sort of person they want, I'm not in a location that's likely to be of assistance, and I don't have the skills they're looking for. It's bulk email, sent to semi-automatically harvested email addresses, with no underlying research or targetting. > How is this different from posting your email > on any web page anywhere on the Internet? Clearly it isn't. > And what is with all the drama about "via HN"? You seem to have a different concept of "drama" than I do, but I'll accept that. >> Shame > Are you asking the spammer to feel shame? > Or are you surprised spammers trawled HN > and suggesting HN readers (or moderators) > feel shame? No, I think it's a shame that I've got spam through this source. I am saddened - not really sure why. I guess I've come to think of HN as different from "other forums." That impression is being eroded, bit by bit. > (fwiw I got this message too. "Mark as spam". Done). Good for you. Sadly, this is so close to other emails I get that are relevant to consultancy work I do that my spam filtering didn't catch it. Indeed, I'm not using it to train my spam filters because it is so close. <shrug> As someone else said - welcome to the internet.
jacquesm 17y ago
If it does not fit your definition of spam then that's fine with me, but it definitely fits mine. Anybody that would not even take the time to read the profiles they're sending these emails to are spammers.
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "If it does not fit your definition of spam then that's fine with me, but it definitely fits mine." hmm it does fit my definition of spam. Hence my suggestion to "Mark as spam".Maybe you aren't replying to me? So yes, I agree it is spam. "Anybody that would not even take the time to read the profiles they're sending these emails to are spammers." I agree(again perhaps you aren't replying to me). I don't see where we disagree. I don't understand the surprise (and handwringing) about spammers harvesting any publicly available email on any webpage. This has been true since the beginnings of spam. Why should HN be immune?
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    I think the main problem here is that it seems to be HN'ers spamming other HN'ers. If it were for some large sum of money that I'm going to come in to it would be business as usual, this is different.
    - plinkplonk 17y ago
      " think the main problem here is that it seems to be HN'ers spamming other HN'ers." Well (a) an HN'er is just someone who has filled in two text boxes. There is not even amoderator approval step to join HN and it is not like you have to have a certain amount of karma to see email addresses. (b) (I could be wrong about this but) you can see email addresses even when logged out if they are part of the "publicly exposed" part of the profile. So you don't need to be an HNer to harvest a good set of emails. If I am wrong on (b) then maybe the moderators can do something about this, but I can't think what. Anyone can log in with pseudo name/password combo. quietly harvest all visible emails and hey presto targeted spam.
      - 17y ago

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago

> Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought > your email was available on your profile page > for anyone to read and extract. Yes it is. > So as far as I can see all this means is that > someone is trawling HN profiles for email of > likely startup employees and sending out email. Almost. They are trawling HN profiles for emails of anyone on HN. Even a tiny amount of research would show that I'm not the sort of person they want, I'm not in a location that's likely to be of assistance, and I don't have the skills they're looking for. It's bulk email, sent to semi-automatically harvested email addresses, with no underlying research or targetting. > How is this different from posting your email > on any web page anywhere on the Internet? Clearly it isn't. > And what is with all the drama about "via HN"? You seem to have a different concept of "drama" than I do, but I'll accept that. >> Shame > Are you asking the spammer to feel shame? > Or are you surprised spammers trawled HN > and suggesting HN readers (or moderators) > feel shame? No, I think it's a shame that I've got spam through this source. I am saddened - not really sure why. I guess I've come to think of HN as different from "other forums." That impression is being eroded, bit by bit. > (fwiw I got this message too. "Mark as spam". Done). Good for you. Sadly, this is so close to other emails I get that are relevant to consultancy work I do that my spam filtering didn't catch it. Indeed, I'm not using it to train my spam filters because it is so close. <shrug> As someone else said - welcome to the internet.

jacquesm 17y ago

If it does not fit your definition of spam then that's fine with me, but it definitely fits mine. Anybody that would not even take the time to read the profiles they're sending these emails to are spammers.

plinkplonk 17y ago
"If it does not fit your definition of spam then that's fine with me, but it definitely fits mine." hmm it does fit my definition of spam. Hence my suggestion to "Mark as spam".Maybe you aren't replying to me? So yes, I agree it is spam. "Anybody that would not even take the time to read the profiles they're sending these emails to are spammers." I agree(again perhaps you aren't replying to me). I don't see where we disagree. I don't understand the surprise (and handwringing) about spammers harvesting any publicly available email on any webpage. This has been true since the beginnings of spam. Why should HN be immune?
- jacquesm 17y ago
  I think the main problem here is that it seems to be HN'ers spamming other HN'ers. If it were for some large sum of money that I'm going to come in to it would be business as usual, this is different.
  - plinkplonk 17y ago
    " think the main problem here is that it seems to be HN'ers spamming other HN'ers." Well (a) an HN'er is just someone who has filled in two text boxes. There is not even amoderator approval step to join HN and it is not like you have to have a certain amount of karma to see email addresses. (b) (I could be wrong about this but) you can see email addresses even when logged out if they are part of the "publicly exposed" part of the profile. So you don't need to be an HNer to harvest a good set of emails. If I am wrong on (b) then maybe the moderators can do something about this, but I can't think what. Anyone can log in with pseudo name/password combo. quietly harvest all visible emails and hey presto targeted spam.
    - 17y ago