Re:obscure names (Score 1)

Many spammers don't do a pure dictionary attack, they just do random combinations of letters and maybe numbers. They are even less likely to use '_'. So if you create an email address at a highly targetted site like hotmail, make sure you put an '_' in your name.

I've never gotten spam at my AT&T email account, and I do have numerics in my username so that may have blocked the spam.

I despise companies giving out personal information as much as anything, but false accusations do not help the situation. They make the whole thing unwinnable for the honest folks.