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Email addresses can be brute forced as others have mentioned, so it's not a guarantee that Amazon leaked your email. I also think that the kind of hoops tech-s
by dangus 4y ago
Email addresses can be brute forced as others have mentioned, so it's not a guarantee that Amazon leaked your email.
I also think that the kind of hoops tech-savvy folks go through to protect their main email account from spam are more time and effort than dealing with spam in the first place.
I'm personally not going to register for things with a thousand different + addresses just to try and find out what company leaked my email. Even if I manage that with a password manager it just seems like an extra chore.
Spammer's got me email address? I don't really care. The spam is going to the spam box.
Am I opening myself up to a larger attack vector? I guess so, maybe. There are more important things in life than locking down my online life like it's fort knox.
Like, think about it, OP. You got a piece of spam mail and you contacted Amazon, and then made a post on HN about it. Is this really worth your time and headspace? I get hundreds of pieces of spam email a month and I don't notice or care.
I don't really think email addresses were designed to be private pieces of information in the first place. Enabling two-factor authentication is the effective protection against account seizure.
- licebmi__at__ 4y agoThis kind of stuff is as low effort that even apple is doing it for people. You might need to jump some hoops to not be locked into apple, but once you use a password manager, this is mostly transparent. The largest hurdle I have to deal is puzzled looks whenever I have to give my details to customer service or people in person. Which by the way, for me is more than just dealing with spam. It's more about dealing with a breach of trust. If my info got leaked or sold by a company, I might want to review what kind of business I would like to have with them. I mean, I even got spam on an email I gave to a company I was contracting with. After some research, it seems like it was for a company owned by a high exec's son. Keep in mind that this is was post GDPR and the company did business in Europe.
- majikandy 4y agoAh yes… the classic “do you work for dell?”. No, because I’d have a dell email address wouldn’t I? not one that starts with dell@