What's In Steve Ballmer's Inbox? 93
Barence writes "When Microsoft last year launched Outlook.com, the company carelessly left the SteveBallmer@Outlook.com address vacant. It was snapped up by the editor of PC Pro, giving an insight into the type of emails the public sends to the Microsoft CEO. Among the messages sent to the account are complaints about the Windows 8 interface, a plea from someone who was 'literally driven crazy' by Windows Server product keys, and someone who wants Windows Phone's calendar to remind him when he's being paid. There's also a more sinister complaint from someone who claims they were the victim of racial discrimination when applying for a job at a Microsoft Store."
Don't forget.. (Score:3, Informative)
Lots of SPAM advertising Dancing Monkey Man brand Anti-Persperants (Zoo Strength). For those on the go who feel the need to jump around on stage like an angry gorilla but don't want to be embarrassed by sweat marks..
Re:Another view; a catch-all inbox (Score:2, Informative)
The dots are part of the rfc, IIRC.
Most mail systems (actually, I've only run into Exchange not conforming) allow you to receive some.body@domain.com (or s.o.m.e.body@domain.com), because the dots are not counted. You can also append a plus symbol and another string (again, not with Exchange) like som.ebody+paypal@domain.com and then perform filtering at the email reader.
You can use these techniques to identify who sold your email address. joe+netflix@domain, joe+uhaul@domain...
Works with gmail and other standards compliant email systems.
Re:Another view; a catch-all inbox (Score:2, Informative)
I had a catchall for a "two lettter" domain name (xy.com, for letters not x and y)
that I got in 1993, and sold two years ago for the big bucks.
The amount of junk mail I got was insane, roughly 100MB every two hours.
(The time it took to fill it.) Lots and lots of junk mail. A surprising number of
e-mails from corporate mailing lists (including internal e-mails from a major
aerospace manufacturer). Lots and lots of 419 e-mails. Lots of e-mails
concerning Michael Jackson (both before and after he died). A *lot* of
resumes (a major temp/placement service has a similar address beginning
with xy).
A huge number of e-mails clearly intended for xy.edu (which was a modestly
sized university). A few e-mails intended for xy.org. Some e-mails apparently
misdirected from a gay swinger to his buddies. Lots of personal e-mails of
varied origin. Lots of misdirected flames.
After a few attempts to let various individuals know that perhaps they didn't
want to be sending sensitive e-mails to the domain, I gave up -- both the
volume of misdirected e-mail and the volume/hysteria/general-crazy of the
indignant replies threatening lawsuits for reading their *personal* e-mails and
accusing me of all manner of illicit skullduggery were insane. (Apparently
considering the idea that they might not actually want xy.com on any of their
mailing lists, and might correct same was not a possibility to be realistically
considered.)