Spam via HN ... | Hacker News Reader

Spam via HN ...

Well, I've just received my first unsolicited commercial email to the address I've advertised in my profile here. Given that it takes some effort to extract it, I'm not concerned that this might be the start of a flood, and given that it's advertising for applicants to join a start-up currently in stealth and going beta in February, it's mostly "on topic."

It is, however, unsolicited "commercial" email.

Via HN.

It's a shame. I'd come to think of HN as somewhere a bit special, and that's gradually being eroded, which makes me sad.

(EDIT: That last bit used to to read "Shame." but it was misinterpreted, so I've expanded it.)

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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 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).

  > 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.

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.

"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?

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.

" 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.

You seem to be very much intent on showing that this kind of behaviour is both to be expected and acceptable, we will have to disagree about that.

"You seem to be very much intent on showing that this kind of behaviour is both to be expected"

Yes. If you put your email somewhere public you are certain to get spam. So yes it is to be expected.

"and acceptable"

No, it isn't a nice thing to happen to you but there is nothing that can be done about it once you've put your email id on a public page. So it is not acceptable, but it will happen anyway. I guess i am not surprised when it happens.

" will have to disagree about that."

shrug.

I guess I just don't get the sense of outrage about first putting an email id on a public, indexable, crawlable web page and then groaning and moaning about nasty lowlifes sending you spam. This is like wandering around in dark alleys in shady areas and then being surprised about getting mugged. I agree it shouldn't happen and in an ideal world it wouldn't but it does.

If you don't want spam, don't expose your email id on the web. Or have an extra spamtrap id if you must enter email ids into web forms. Obfuscate the id to throw off regex matchers. Have a good spam filter. That's the state of play as of today.

Welcome to the Internet.

I used to invest a lot of time in HN precisely because it wasn't at all like the rest of the internet. I'm not sure using the internet as a measure of quality is a wise choice.

(Although one could argue that targeted spam is inevitable when a community grows beyond n users, regardless of the quality of the community.)

The only real shame in this case is that HN is becoming a place for people to air their trivial meta nonsense.

You got an unwanted piece of email? Take a second to mark it as spam and be done with it. Sweet mother of god, you got it via HN?? Once again, take the exact same second to mark it as spam and be done it. But don't assume that it affects the big scheme of things concerning HN, because it doesn't. A single company trolling for emails is orthogonal to the evolution/erosion of HN.

P.S. You're feeling 'sad'? This is all it takes to make you feel sad? Jesus.

I've posted it because I think it's another marker that points to the continuing change here on HN. Yes, I've marked the email as spam, although not processed it the usual way because it is close to stuff I do for real. I've now made a tweak to the spam processing so that the email address I use here now requires the marker I name in my profile, rather than just being a hint. Sure, it took me 10 seconds to read the email, decide it was spam, check the source, adjust the filtering, and move on.

Submitting this item has let me see that others have got it, it is bulk, and to measure the expectation. At a casual glance it seems that most of the longer serving contibutors are saying the same thing - it's a shame, and it's a sign of the decline on HN. Most of the newer contributors are saying the same thing - welcome to the internet, why should you expect anything different?

The correlation isn't 100%, but it seems to be real. If I get time later I might actually go away and find out what the correlation coefficent really is.

But for now, it's information about those who visit/inhabit HN. If you don't find it interesting then you could take one second to sigh and move on, shaking your head about the sad state of people who post trivial meta nonsense.

PS: I'm not feeling suicidally depressed, but it has had an overall negative impact on my day. That's why I'm going off and doing more programming - that cheers me up.

I got one... I wonder how many they sent out.

For anyone else considering doing this, please just submit it as a story.

I got my first spam today too. It must be the same one.

The most annoying part was that they were looking for people to work at Stanford, CA while I am here in Bangalore, India.

so no daily commute?

Ok, the email in your profile requires a human to interpret it, but this is still most likely the case (I got that spam too).

If someone got it on the non-public email used for YC submissions, it would be a different story (HN security compromised, or someone with legitimate access to these addresses leaking them).

I encrypted my email address, so one has to install ruby at least before sending me spam.

It is not Spam per se if it is relevant - and clearly in this case someone has gone to some trouble to identify relevant recipients for a specific email. Where is the "crime" in the commercial aspect - we are all in business one way or another? I do think you are being too sensitive. If you do not want to receive emails from users of HN then perhaps you should not make your address available.

I got one too, perhaps to everyone on the leader board? Though, it's not the first that I've gotten via HN.

The thing is I find it find for people to do recruiting over HN, but if they don't have the time to read my profile, then I don't have time to not flag their mail as spam and delete with prejudice.

I got one too! It was annoying. I am based out of India and the posting is for CA.

Maybe the erosion started when I arrived (sorry), but the last 6 months I have not noticed any decline. I read HN daily, and each and every day I find it equally useful.

Take that for what it's worth.

Yeah me too, same one.

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