Posted by Gordon Burditt on 04/05/07 22:18

>> > I have lost an email address which is very important to me. I really
>> > need to contact that person asap.
>> > I'm sure to remember that it begin with "leslie".
>> > Is any of you out there able to run a powerful email extractor, script
>> > or anything else that will provide me a complete list of such
>> > addresses?

There is no such way to get a *complete* list. And hacking servers
is immoral and probably illegal. You can try to run extractors
against USENET posts or even files (or unallocated disk space) on
your own system. That's not illegal by itself, and it may be
perfectly moral depending on what you do with the list (spamming
is right out!).

>> > Doesn't matter how big it will be, it's really important for me. Above
>> > all, I'm not going to spam anyone, I have no commercial purpose in
>> > mind.
>> > I can also reward people able to help me.
>> > PLEASE contact me at: akaico@gmail.com
>> > TIA
>> >
>> From what data set would you like us to extract the email address?
>> Specific Newsgroups? The entire internet? Files on your own system?
>> There are sites that can help you find details on people, but with just
>> a first name it will probably be impossible to do so.
>> I have been able to find quite a few people's data via the dutch
>> people-finder website voelspriet.nl which basically combines search
>> methods from a number of other searching sites.
>>
>> If you used to correspond with this person via email, your ISP may be
>> able to retrieve that data from their archives?
>>
>> GL
>> Sh.
>
>thanks a lot for your kind reply, I really appreciate it, but
>unfortunally I haven't been in touch with this person yet and I've
>lost the note.
>What I really need would be the possibility to harvest email addresses
>from email providers like hotmail and yahho beginning with leslie and
>then write a program which will scan for the address I'm looking for.
>I have few useful information about it.
>I know how to write programs but not how to hack on servers. All I've
>been able to find on the web was just a waste of time.
>If all the email addresses in the world were in a table I would just
>need to type this simple query:
>select * from email_address where name like 'leslie%@%'
>nothing more than that...
>My memory says leslie_basel(at)yahoo.de but obviously this address
>doesn't exists and I've tried many variations of it. So I'm just sure
>about the beginning of the address.

Have you tried writing the administrator at yahoo.de and asking
nicely? He's NOT going to give you a whole list. If you can give him
more clues than the email address, he might contact some of them and
pass on a message for you.

Also try a newsgroup search on Google, especially if you think this
person might have posted there, but it's worth a try even if you
don't know.

>Email tester only check for a precise address, I'd need instead
>something which will reply my with a list of address for a given
>criteria.

Spammers have made sure that any such thing that actually works will
be set on fire immediately on discovery.

>I haven't found yet any evidence on web pages, newsgroup, or people
>finder engine.
>I really hope for some help.
>thanx, a.

[Back to original message]