Danger of using your real name (was Re: From name containing a spoofed email address)

[Dianne Skoll <df...@roaringpenguin.com>]

On Sat, 20 Jan 2018 00:33:32 -0500
"Bill Cole" <sa...@billmail.scconsult.com> wrote:

> On 19 Jan 2018, at 20:02 (-0500), jdow wrote:

> > After your first time being a victim of cyberstalking you'll soon
> > enough wish your "from" line was as generic as mine. People who put
> > their full name in the From: line haven't been mugged yet. I spent
> > a year learning about this 1985-1986.

Wow, that's awful!

[snip]

> OTOH, if I were a woman or looked less like a biker-bar bouncer or
> had a history I'd rather not have widely known, I'd almost surely
> evaluate my risk differently. This is a hard problem that no one has
> yet solved.

One minute of googling "dfs@roaringpenguin.com" will produce a lot
of information including the fact that I'm a member of a fairly
vulnerable group.  The info is out there, so at this point I've
stopped worrying about it.  The good news is that I do not live in the
United States, whereas most of the people I provoke online do :), so I
have some physical distance to protect me.

> > As a byproduct of this habit of mine, when I see a "To: John" or
> > other name than mine it's automatically spam, especially when it
> > cannot even get the gender right.

Yeah, "Dear Dfs," is a dead giveaway for me.

Regards,

Dianne.