[RndTbl] Manitoba Hydro email database hacked (or sold)

[Adam Thompson]

I gave up doing that after the Venetian hotel in Vegas accused me of hacking their systems when I *reported* email database leakage...  "The best defense is a good offense" - as long as you've got the right target in your sights.
-Adam

On April 26, 2015 12:13:25 AM CDT, Trevor Cordes <trevor at tecnopolis.ca> wrote:
>On 2015-04-25 Bradford C. Vokey wrote:
>> Trevor Cordes (and myself) use vendor specific email addresses when
>> we sign up for services (it's easy when you control your own domain).
>
>Yes, it's shocking the number of big companies that leak my email:
>
>xerox
>primus
>hydro
>viewsonic
>seagate
>...
>
>there's dozens, at least.
>
>Also, I've found those little paper-based "enter to win" boxes at local
>food joints / stores are all just big lying spam traps.  I think they
>are just phishing scams but in the physical world.  Sometimes when I
>have nothing better to do I'll enter those (with a unique email
>address) and within months I get hundreds of spams to that address, and
>AFAIK no one ever wins everything.  I guess I fell for a "brick &
>mortar" scam; were it a cyber scam I'd never fall for it.  Luckily I
>can
>just /dev/null that one-off address. "Woodlands" is the worst: they
>claim to give away a nice looking oil painting each month. All they
>give away is spam. Since this is in the "real world" and in Canada, why
>aren't the cops on their case?  I mean, someone has to pick up the
>little boxes!  Someone has to get consent from the retail
>establishment.
>
>> So how (and when) did Manitoba Hydro get their email accounts list
>> hacked?
>> 
>> If so, what else got hacked? Our per-authorized Debit information?!?
>
>Ha, ya.  One would hope they'd be in separate DBs!
>
>> If not, then did they actually sell their email accounts lists to
>> spam lists?
>
>That I *seriously* doubt.  They'd get in big doodoo for that.  Now, did
>a single employee steal the list and sell it?  Maybe... More likely
>they were compromised somehow.
>
>> ...P.S. If anyone wants to meet some desperate Russian chick feel
>> free to believe in the spam...
>
>Doh!  By including the spam in your posting you a) got your email put
>in
>my possible-spam-(low) folder, and b) present me with the dilemma of
>whether to mark the entire email as spam or not-spam :-)  I know Bayes
>will most likely "do the right thing" but I can't see anything good
>about giving "Russian chick" a less-spammy Bayesian weighting.  Hmm, I
>guess I will have to mark it as not-spam, as I don't yet have a maildir
>folder called: "keep these emails, they look spammy but are not, so
>don't train on them".  That seems just one step too far down the road
>to insanity.
>
>;-)
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-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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