How do I get my email?

How did this person get my full name just by my email?

• I don't know how this lady got my full name just by me sending her an email. So I'm wondering what, why and how this was accomplished. Okay so I'm selling something on craigslist and had a lady email me that she was interested in it and that I should email her at her email ....@hotmail if I still had it. I sent the email from my email that I use for craigslist and later received an email in my spam box from who I think is the same lady with an aol.com address thanking me for my response and that if I go to this link and watch this video to make sure it is the thing she was looking for. when I clicked on the link it wanted me to download something so I could play the video but I didn't. It seemed weird so I looked again at the email and it included my full name. but I never shared that information with her. What do you think?

• Answer:

  The most obvious reason would be the name under wich ur email was sent. If u set up for instance a yahoo mail account u also have to give up a name. That name is sent as the "from" info when u send an email. So if u gave ur full name when setting up the account ur full name wil be sent when u send an email. When u want to check this, just view ur email account and view the name that belongs to it. It's good to be a bit paranoid because there are criminals on the internet, but downloading something to view a video is realy very common. When downloading stuff like that make sure it comes from a wel known site. Wel known things to download are for instance java, flash etc. But when u see a familiar name also check it is realy what it seems. A well know tactic to steal info , like creditcard info, from people is the so called "spoofing" technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoofing_attack So if a site requires u to install java or flash, and the pop-up seems original then u can normally just do that with very little risk, although there always is some risk whenever u download something no matter what. But if a site requires u to download some strange exe file be very cautious especially if it's not a known trustworthy site. Also have the smartscreen filter in internet exploreer 8 activated: http://www.microsoft.com/security/filters/smartscreen.aspx To prevent data-theft: - use a firewall - only allow applications u trust access to the net, like internet explorer etc. Any malicious sofware u may have downloaded wil then not be able to send info to the net. A good firewall should notify u when an application that has internet-access has changed. This can be ok after u for instance just installed something but should make u very suspicious if u didn't. If for instance ur firewall tells u iexplore.exe has changed and u didn't do anything special like updating u should be alarmed. - when typing in creditcard info always check the actuall URL of the site to prevent spoofing. (Normally those sites are secure sites who's url begin with https instead of http) - Be aware of personall info u put on the web also related to ur email. If u for instance make some easily accessable personal webpage or account containing ur emailadress somebody might in some situations use that as a means to know more about u then u would like.