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Comment by spindritf | Hacker News Reader

Speaking of e-mail leaks, has Tumblr?

I started receiving spam (the dumbest, v1agra type) to tumblr@mydomain.tld which I think I have only used for tumblr and years ago since I let my account be purged at some ToS change a while back. Although I might have also used it for a service merely associated with tumblr.

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Yes. I have an address which I'm sure hasn't been used for anything except registering on Tumblr, and it started receiving spam about two months ago.

There's a good chance that tumblr@example.org is going to be a real account.

If you started getting spam to tumblr.w8ke2iowieiu3k3@example.org then I'd be suspicious. (I must remember to do this for new things I sign up to.)

Sure but I have a catch-all and I'm not receiving e-mails to twitter@mydomain, or facebook@mydomain. It's not impossible that spammers decided tumblr is particularly likely because they offer a version of the service in your domain but still pretty unlucky for tumblr.

I must remember to do this for new things I sign up to.

It is a good idea.

This is similar in principle to the compromised address, which is why, despite the downvotes I'm getting elsewhere[0][1], I'm fairly confident that this isn't just a dictionary or a fishing attack, but a genuine leak. Other comments suggest that the leak my not be from LinkedIn themselves, but simply from their business model/systems leaking information.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8367103

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8367296

In my case, both linkedin and tumblr e-mail addresses have been leaked somehow. It was definitely not a simple dictionary attack, based on the addresses I used.

I have also started receiving spam at my tumblr-only address.

Yea they must have. I have a domain that is a catch all address and I have a bunch of tumblrs that are random things like hn3@email, hn4@email, derp@email, and all 10+ of them get the spam emails

I would not put it past spammers to be trying this angle when generating addresses. Low-hanging fruit and all.

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