The Spam Cryer

If Your e-mail Address Starts With A You Get 10% More Spam!

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August 28th, 2008

An interesting article that analyzed spam sent to both real and fake e-mail addresses over an 8 week period which shows that e-mail accounts that start with some letters get more spam than others. (Aardvarks vs. Zebra in the article).

This makes sense as some names are more popular and thus easier for the spammers to guess. I happen to know lots of people – 10+ with the first name ‘Scott’ (one is my brother) but none that have the first name Zeus. There is an interesting graph in the PDF on page 2 that shows both the amount of spam and ham and then the ratio between them for different letters of the alphabet. What does your e-mail address start with?

This only reinforces what I have felt all along that some people are more popular spam targets than others.

http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2008/08/25/zebras-and-aardvarks/

- Shaun

Here are some more articles on the study (including the original):

Zebras and Aardvarks - However, if one only considers “real” aardvarks and zebras, viz: where a particular email address was legitimate enough to receive some non-spam email, then the picture changes. If one treats an email address as “real” if there’s one … Does it matter if you are an aardvark or a zebra? - According to Cambridge University security expert Richard Clayton, if your email address is aardvark@animal.net, you are more likely to receive spam than if your address is zebra@animal.net. “It makes quite a big diff… Does my name affect how much spam I get? - There is, he says, a genuine statistical divide between what he calls “aardvarks” – those high up the alphabetical food chain – and “zebras” – who graze at the bottom of the dictionary. For those weary of it, he even suggests changing …

Entry Filed under: Lead Story, Research