I installed Ubuntu a few days ago. After registering here and asking one question, I was flooded with more than 150 junk emails, most of which were in the form of a mailer return. A search on LQ for "junk email" gives lots of suggestions for spam applications, but what concerns me is the rapidity with which my email address was propagated among the spammers.

Is there a security protocol that I have failed to install or activate, in order to prevent this? Is there a way to encrypt email in Linux?

JimF - a pilgrim still

Bizarre, and interesting.

I am inclined to assert that it is not the fault of LQ, or of your posting or registering here that got you the junk emails though. Of course, if you posted your email address somewhere that bots could scoop it up, that may play a role.

At least I have never had such an issue here, or anywhere lately.

Do you happen to have Windoze installed, and or did you post here from a Windoze machine that might be afflicted with a keylogger or some other form of crapware? Maybe that is where the problem started..

I am not aware of any security protocols per se, that you may have failed to activate, at least not in the context of joining/posting to LQ.

Email encryption can be accomplished by using GPG/PGP signing and encryption, but I haven't a clue how to do it exactly; I have never done it

Not sure what to tell you about spam applications. I'm sure someone will have some other ideas and suggestions though.

I believe email addresses are harvested from internet routers, meaning there are some greedy irresponsible sysadmins. Email addresses are in plaintext and easy to harvest. If someone knows better, I'm all ears.

Hi, JimF~

1) Is JimF your username on a web-based mail server?

2) If so, do you have spam control activated?

3) Is there any way possible that your e-mail address has been compromised, maybe even by a contact whose address book has been compromised?

If, in fact, JimF is your username on an insecure server, or one with the spam controls not set properly, it might be possible that your e-mail address was compromised from LQ, but not probable. Most likely, that's just a coincidence. FWIW- using mailer returns is a new wave of technology for spreading spam and malware, because they are mostly ignored by servers. But the fact is that dragonslayer48dx is my username for my ISP e-mail, but then again, my ISP offers excellent spam control... and I use it... hence the reason I've never received any junk mail.

Cheers

Coincidence, me thinks.

I've been a member here for a long time, and other than the periodic admin mailings, I don't receive mail from LQ.

Was there anything in the emails that would link them to LQ?

GrapefruiTgirl: This machine is whistle clean. I crashed the HD a few months ago. After installing a new HD, the machine sat idle until hunting season was over. Recently, I opted to use Ubuntu for my OS and have just installed it this week. Meanwhile, I have a Dell laptop running (crawling!) Vista. The question on LQ was from the clean machine.

Anyway, I have not had any further deluge of email...just the usual 5-6 solicitations implying that I am somehow inadequate anatomically. In Vista these are caught in the Junk mail folder. With Evolution in Ubuntu, they appear in my Inbox. I assume eventually I'll learn how to catch 'em sooner into a Junk folder. Remember, this is day four for me with Linux.

Bill: I notice others have non-name user names, e.g., you are Bill in the signature block, but dragonslayer48dx for a user name. Forgive my novice ignorance, but is there a reason NOT to use a name for user name?

JimF -- a pilgrim still

Well pilgrim,

Are you anatomically inadequate? If not, just trash the emails.

The Thunderbird email client has a nice learning spam filter. Maybe consider installing that?

There are loads of users who use human-looking names, presumably their real names, as user names. Whether it's a good idea or not is subjective, however I don't recall seeing any posts by any of those users about getting stacks of emails

Maybe like SlowCoder and others suggested, it is a coincidence, exacerbated by a missing or unconfigured SPAM filter..

Welcome to Linux, btw, if I haven't said that yet.

Sasha

Not to my knowledge-- mostly personal preference. However, I have seen the suggestion not to use your e-mail username or post your e-mail address in public for security/privacy reasons, although I've not had a problem with it.

Quite true. I used Firefox and T'bird with Windows for a couple years before I switched to Linux. While MS tried to build a spam filter into Outlook, IMHO it was still pretty lame in v6 w/WinXP. I can't honestly say much about Evolution, though-- I've not used it.

Cheers