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montroser 2 days ago [-]
The contact list of the person you emailed in 2017 was obtained by a spammer, who then sent you spam.
thatonehack 13 hours ago [-]
OP here. I only sent 3 emails from this very specific @fastmail.com email address in the past and it was way back in 2017. The email in question has never received email with the exception of this weird email in German language within a week of visiting Germany.
montroser 20 minutes ago [-]
> specific @fastmail.com email address
You said <alias>@<user>.<domain>.<tld> above, so which one is it?
chinathrow 2 days ago [-]
Either this, or Fastmail was compromised recently and more will find out soon.
ycombinatrix 2 days ago [-]
Doesn't explain why the email was in German.
montroser 1 days ago [-]
Could very well be apophenia. Germany was just one of the countries visited, and we all get spam in a variety of languages all the time, including German.
thatonehack 13 hours ago [-]
I've never received a spam email in German in my entire life. This spam email actually looks to be a legitimate email as after translating it the contents were basically to verify the email address. I don't think I've ever received an email in another language in my entire life and certainly not while I've been at Fastmail (10+ years).
ycombinatrix 14 hours ago [-]
I don't get spam from a variety of languages.
The only foreign language spam I got was from Pokemon Go after I played it while visiting France & Spain. I received French and Spanish emails from them for years.
Transformanshen 2 days ago [-]
I think so too
threecheese 21 hours ago [-]
Your iPhone was definitely transmitting identifiers which can be passively retrieved, via BT for example. These aren't directly tied to your identity, but announce that id-0001 was in Germany.
It's not beyond reason to guess that you stumbled into some niche ad targeting group, like "US grape juice drinkers who've visited Germany", and your old email identity was transitively linked somehow. Maybe ten years ago that email was about grape juice?
dv_dt 18 hours ago [-]
Is Verizon's fine for selling user location data high enough to be more of a deterrent than cost of doing business? The fine was even for selling to the wrong parties, implying that there are parties to access it legitimately.
winstonwinston 15 hours ago [-]
When you roam phone “leaks” mobile number and identifiers. So receiving a Text (SMS or iMessage) spam would make sense, but email does not.
AlisaYoki 1 days ago [-]
Could there have been some kind of data leak involving German companies? I mean, the services track those who are in Germany and leak their data.
csomar 1 days ago [-]
How many aliases do you have? If this is the only one, then I'll be more suspect this is a fail on your end or the guy you sent a message to.
Also, I don't see the connection to Germany?
thatonehack 13 hours ago [-]
OP here: for clarification I have "email addresses" which are <whatever>@fastmail.com (or whatever other domains fastmail offers). I then use the word "alias" for the on-the-fly alias such as trash@whatever.fastmail.com where the real email address is whatever@fastmail.com. To be clear, the email I received in German was sent to the whatever@fastmail.com (an actual email address, not an on the fly alias). The connection to Germany is that the email seems legitimate to some degree (it was to verify the email address) but it was in German and received within a week after visiting Germany. The email address was not used while in Germany and has never been put into a web form.
totallygeeky 2 days ago [-]
I don't have much to offer unfortunately, but I will say I've had an uptick on spam/unusual emails to my fastmail as well, including to some aliases. I'm wondering if there's not some way actors are searching out masked aliases, or are able to bruteforce combinations?
Just throwing shit at the wall however, no definitive proof one way or another.
csomar 1 days ago [-]
There are no combinations. The aliases are make-do in fastmail backend. If you have a domain, you theoretically receive all emails sent to that domain (*@domain.com)
You said <alias>@<user>.<domain>.<tld> above, so which one is it?
The only foreign language spam I got was from Pokemon Go after I played it while visiting France & Spain. I received French and Spanish emails from them for years.
It's not beyond reason to guess that you stumbled into some niche ad targeting group, like "US grape juice drinkers who've visited Germany", and your old email identity was transitively linked somehow. Maybe ten years ago that email was about grape juice?
Also, I don't see the connection to Germany?
Just throwing shit at the wall however, no definitive proof one way or another.