Sorry for this long post
It has been less than 5 days since I opened my SG account.
I posted to usenet using an SG ID I created for this purpose
2 days after that, I get 20 spams at an ID named
hf.50.<myid>@spamgourmet.com. Note that hf is not the ID I created for my USENET account
All these emails were in German and were from domains ending in .de
Two observations:
1. It seems that all these guys needed to know for creating an ID to spam me was that my ID was <myid> (heck what I am trying to hide <myid> == "vsp" . They then proceeded to to send me 50 messages (probably) of which I received 20
2. Use a prefix - I hear you say?
Well, how about I choose a prefix, then 2 days later I receive 20 spams at an ID created using this prefix. Then I log in again and change the prefix and receive 20 spams again and here we go again ... This is far from the "register and forget" idiom promoted by SG right?
My conclusions:
1. Here spam is being targetted specifically to the SG service.
2. 20 emails is a HUGE default. Please make it 3 (expandable to 20 by user login and request)
3. Prefixes will also prove to be unsafe against a targetted attempt like this one and will require regular visits to spamgourmet.com to change the prefix
A question:
Can I disable my forward email ID and make it a null string so I can retain my SG account and login, just not have it forward any emails till we figure what is happening here. I would like to come back later and then provide a forward email address.
Hope we can work around this hiccup