[SpamCop-List] Re: My secret ISP e-mail address got spam!

[eddie]

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 13:28:59 -0700, Mike Easter wrote:

snip
> The only way to have a non-guessable username is to use some kind of
> random password type generator and 'maximize' the randomness of its
> generation to create a truly ugly and non-memorizable result.  

I had a similar problem with one of my email addresses, although I may
have used it publicly. But my ISP wouldn't let me change my address
because it was also the account. However, by social engineering and
working upstream on the phone, I was finally able to get someone who let
me change my account name (read: primary email address). I made it
completely random, numbers, letters, lot of them. Then I got smart - 
they allow a large number of secondary email addresses which are
completely under my control. I can make one up, use it and eventually kill
it and make another one, meanwhile, never using my primary email address
ever, not hidden, not as a forward-to alias - nada. So far it has
survived, while my secondary addresses generally get hit after a while in
the wild.
I think it is simply a nuisance for an ISP to change your primary
email/account address, but it can be done, at least once.