Suspect e-mails from adult website that seem weirdly targeted. Help!

March 14, 2018 5:13 AM

Hello all. I recently (a month or two ago) decided to get better about personal security and privacy and in this regard I registered an e-mail account with a (at this point) well-known service apparently lauded for its encryption and security, etc. The other day I started receiving e-mails on this account--which I have used for almost nothing as of yet and have given to almost no one--regarding membership to an adult website. Initially I just treated it as spam and put it in the spam folder, but I decided to take a look and it started to creep me out a little bit.

For one, it wasn't just a random advertisement, but as I said, it seemed to indicate that someone had tried to open an account with my e-mail address. Second, the username it claimed was mine contained a word that, while a coincidence, could passably describe me. Next, all the advertisements for partners from this website are located in a state in the U.S. in which I did live at one time (I no longer live there), and where my parents continue to live.

I keep getting these e-mails (including from one other adult site), and there is an 'unsubscribe from these e-mails' button, but given how scammy this all is, plus well-known hacks of sites like this, I am very skeptical of even clicking any link in the e-mail, so I've left it be.

Suffice to say that this could all be a massive coincidence, but it almost feels like someone who knew me registered this account and is taking the piss. I even thought if it was sincere and someone mistakenly sent it to my address, or hoped to register my e-mail and pre-emptively registered under that name, but that doesn't make sense because if they hadn't registered it yet no e-mail would arrive, unless it's the kind of site where it lets you in without verifying (doubtful).

I guess I'm asking...how is this possible?? Am I freaking out??? Could it have been my own unwise porn usage, that somehow picked up on a running (supposedly secure) process and figured out my address? Are there other ways (dictionary-style attacks?) that my e-mail could have been sussed out and randomly registered? The only thing is this website looks like one of the big ones and as unscrupulous as they are I doubt they would be able to get away with this kind of behaviour (randomly registering e-mails en masse). Is there anything I can do to find the source of this, or do I have to just focus on prevention? Any way to ensure that the links in this e-mail aren't hackasaurus rex and if I click 'unsubscribe' my biodata will be transported to evil perverted aliens trying to acquire my precious bodily fluids?

Thanks Mefi.

posted by anonymous to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Hover over the unsubscribe link and ask a mod to update with the destination and we'll be able to tell you if it is a legitimate unsubscribe link. Legitimate services use some weird sounding URLs but those of us who work in the industry will be familiar with them.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:30 AM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I (not op) got an email or three about a subscription to kink.com, which I had certainly been to before but absolutely had not attempted to sign up for, so... Here's my unsubscribe link copy. Hope it helps


http://links.updates.kink.com/wf/click?upn=RNhR5R2iooSPD7maIdEc-2FOe6mYp-​2FchTxykyZwKf4AOpqOQhAoZeuidr4YUdOBTaj_ZfIXjKuokvESwOjcvUMRxRZePG​2hNKPPZBgTaYclnmSlIs4RJH9w85EbwDvMAW7LgYr3VbbqYdyk-2F4TPc-2BQVTwHpiBXR​7laykuJX-2B2QkXfjhdtVGmyCyWMXc-2Fp1GsTD0-2BBModQsXiHjv-2F0-2FrM7ofT5MLzlHa​z3H0RbL6mCPY2wS67bshpihE5Zj-2BeDdtnlnBmEUg0aXoN9g0I-2FgTv4wL3H4-2Bxvu5qnY-2B​zoRHqVgTyH8ckC6ykgW3URm4Fd4im3eFarlBGs9OnWwkfqdYwuTk-2FN2ErBs45u6Ahk1nspaxQOoRsFzMEx0myliqbd9pumhWovyjbpDUG​0x-2FSlINtD0nsk45TRRy2L0gwEnKJDjYf0aMLqmwdt6qbTJxc1V6Qp0DFB19u​44w7ih0LF7iAzQWfvoQO0fxH9ioF7bvURzzvxa9Vsl-2Fc9K5GsZFAlnPh-2Bfo
posted by Jacen at 5:41 AM on March 14, 2018

I'm with FastMail, and I get a lot of porn spam in my spam folder though I have never in my life signed up with any porn portals. The sheer volume of the stuff means that every now and then somebody is going to get some that looks as if it's targeted; sounds like it's your turn for that today.

Any way to ensure that the links in this e-mail aren't hackasaurus rex and if I click 'unsubscribe' my biodata will be transported to evil perverted aliens trying to acquire my precious bodily fluids?

This is porn spam, so they absolutely do seek to acquire your precious bodily fluids.

Never, never, never click an unsubscribe link in porn spam (or any spam, for that matter). Just report it as spam to improve the spam filter's performance and forget it ever arrived.

The only unsubscribe links that you should ever click are those in mailouts that you definitely remember signing up for, or that you're completely sure are from some organization you definitely remember opening an account with and whose marketing opt-out checkbox you could have missed.

If you never signed up for it, then it's overwhelmingly likely that any "unsubscribe" links inside it go straight to malware.
posted by flabdablet at 5:42 AM on March 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

It is possible that someone used to have your email address and was registered to these sites previously, but later canceled the email address, allowing you to register it for yourself. But the address is still in the sites’ records.

A similar thing happened to me: I briefly subscribed to a site using a Comcast email address. I later ended the subscription and moved to an area with no Comcast service, shutting down that email address. Years later, I moved again and signed up for Comcast again, registering the same email I had previously used. Soon after I started receiving emails from that site asking me to come back. The fact that my Comcast email didn’t exist for a few years didn’t mean they’d removed it from their address book.
posted by ejs at 5:43 AM on March 14, 2018

For one, it wasn't just a random advertisement, but as I said, it seemed to indicate that someone had tried to open an account with my e-mail address.

People try to sign up to stuff with the wrong email address all the time. It's usually because they're idiots and don't know what their own email address is (this is more likely if your email address is your name or a common phrase), but in this case (given the subject of the website) it's possible they were actively trying to use an email that wasn't theirs, to avoid emails from the site appearing in their inbox (of course they could have just created a throw-away email address for this but see my previous point re: people being idiots). It's almost always the first one though.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:17 AM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Check your e-mail address at haveibeenpwned.com. A data breach somewhere might have made your address available for use by spammers.
posted by davcoo at 6:58 AM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Probably someone with a similar email address who lives in your old home state signed up for these sites. You don't need to be pwned for someone else to mistake your email address for theirs and sign up for things with it.

People are really good at forgetting their own email addresses.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:01 AM on March 14, 2018

the username it claimed was mine contained a word that, while a coincidence, could passably describe me. Next, all the advertisements for partners from this website are located in a state in the U.S. in which I did live at one time (I no longer live there), and where my parents continue to live.

FWIW, to this internet stranger, this sounds well within the bounds of coincidence. How many pieces of spam have you had in your life that have had nothing in them that related to you at all? Odds are that at some point you'll get something that has one or two elements that could, through squinty eyes, relate to you.
posted by penguin pie at 3:38 PM on March 14, 2018

I get a reasonable amount of email meant for someone in Ireland who has the same name as me (where I have lived, so this seemed very odd at first). People really can't spell their own email address sometimes.
posted by deadwax at 9:36 PM on March 14, 2018