Your volume of spam may depend on your name

A report at the link below says refers to a recent study showing the the volume of span received could depend on the first letter of your e-mail address.

Those of us with unusual [e-mail] names tend to draw more chuckles and raised eyebrows than our more commonly named counterparts.

But it turns out that there is at least one thing that the Johns and Janes of the world seem to attract more of than we do.

Spam.

A recent study shows that the amount of spam you receive could depend not only how common your first name is but how common the first letter of your e-mail address is.

The study found that e-mail addresses starting with heavily used letters like J, M, R and P, 40 percent of the e-mail received was spam.

Addresses beginning with less frequently used letters, such as Q, X and Z, only 20 percent of the e-mails were spam.

The discrepancies have to do with the way that spammers compile their lists of e-mail addresses.

One common method is called the dictionary attack. Spammers go through the alphabet and if, for example, they know that a john@example.com exists, they'll try sending an e-mail to john@another.com.

Does this mean if we don’t have real names like Phinneas or Ebenezer, we should use e-mail addresses like goofynoofy or smartypants? Goofynoofy indeed!

How many of us would rather tolerate a little more spam than use e-mail addresses like goofynoofy or smartypants?

Link