First letter of email address decides quantum of spam

How much spam you get depends on the first letter in your email address, A Cambridge study reveals.

Analysis of more than 500 millions junk messages has found that addresses that began with more common letters were likely to receive 40 per cent of their mail from spammers. Those starting with less common letters, by contrast, would receive less than a fifth of their mail as spam.

According to the study, if the first part of an email address (that part before '@' symbol) starts with a J, A, U, R, P, M, or S, then it is likely to get proportionately twice as much junk email sent to it than an email address begining with Q, Z, W, Y or F.

Even I tested this I checked my freinds emails, and find a friend with email address begining with letter 'Z', I checked his junk box and compared the number of the mails those with the number of emails in my junk box, and found that I had more such emails as my emial address starts with letter 'P'.

The study didnot draw conclusion as to the exact cause of this phenomenon. However, there was a evidebce to suggest that it could be due in part to the way some spammers launch 'Rumpelstiltskin' attacks. This is where the apammers use dictionary words and proper names ascending alphabetical order in front of large numbers of domain names to generate their junk limits.

Using this spam generation technique, junk emailers would, overtime, emailmore addresses that started with letters in the first half of the alphabet than the secound half.

This can be expected that the results could help in the development of anti-spam measures.