BTYahoo disposable address won't die

[Robert]

I'm still on BTY mail.
I cancelled a disposable BTYahoo address ages ago (because the estate
agents it was set up for, sold me out and it now gets spam), it isn't
listed any more on the disposable addresses for the BTY mail parent
account, but mail is still being forwarded to me from it, as if it still
existed, using the forwarding options that I set up with the parent
account (which forwards to a 3rd party domain email address).

I've been gradually getting rid of the disposable addresses because of
the alleged move to BTMail, but of course, there is no sign of that
actually happening yet.

What can I do to stop the spam that this address is still forwarding for
me? - I have a horrible feeling the answer is - nothing? Is the address
going to live in Yahoo-limbo for ever?

Header contains this:
X-Yahoo-ForwardOnly: from
**********myhandle-*****specifici...@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks in advance.

[Robert]

Seems I'm not the only one experiencing this problem.
https://community.bt.com/t5/Email/Are-disposable-addresses-really-disposable/td-p/1500088
If anyone has access to the BT Care Community forum could they respond
to that and let them know they are not on their own?
https://twitter.com/blepharon/status/614773045585149952

Under DPA, if I ask for personal information like an email address to be
deleted and BTY say it HAS been deleted, then it becomes clear they have
retained it for months, made it live again, and even used it to deliver
spam to me, then there may be a DPA issue for the ICO to sort out.
Especially as my account page shows no evidence of the disposable
address in question, so there is nothing I can do from my end.

[Dick]

I though that you had crept in under the wire and had managed to post on
the forum.

[Robert]

ROFL! No that's not me.
I've given up trying to do anything positive on that forum. It's a waste
of time.
BT aren't interested in sorting their email out - they don't regard it
as part of their contract.
I see no one bothered to reply on the forum anyway.

Mind you, if anyone cared to "bump" the post, it might be interesting to
see if anyone tries to reply.

I eventually got an auto-reply from BTCare via Twitter, but they had
totally misunderstood the problem despite being sent a very a clear
email explaining their own email structure.
I've been on holiday, so will renew contact.

Next move will be a formal DPA request to BT, for them to delete the
AddressGuard address and the related personal data (copied to the ico).
At least that will force them to generate some DPA paperwork.

If all else fails I will send them £10 as per DPA, and ask for a full
list of personal data linked to each of my btinternet.com and
yahoo.co.uk AddressGuard addresses and see if it includes the
supposed-to-be-deleted ones.

BT never fail to amuse.

[Tagger]

Every now and then someone will ask on the forums when they will be migrated
across to BT Mail. This never prompts any official (or even unofficial)
response from BT, just other forum members reiterating that the migration
process has stopped, and BT have not made any commitment to re-start it at
any date.

Simon

[AnthonyL]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 19:14:19 +0100, "Tagger" <ne...@tagsouth.co.uk>
wrote:

I wonder if they are still taking money from those that were panicked
to move to Premium mail in order to retain their previously free
legacy email accounts!

--
AnthonyL

[Robert]

I've just discovered something else interesting (and worrying) about
BTYahoo! disposable addresses.

Having just received a spam email to a disposable address with a unique
string I didn't recognise, I wondered what would happen if I just "made
up" a disposable address with a string of random letters as the unique bit.

So I just sent myself an email to a "made up" disposable address, that I
never actually created in the relevant BTYahoo! mail interface. I just
used the existing disposable address base name and added a random string
to it.
It was delivered to the parent address normally.

So if you know someone's "base name" for a BTYahoo! AddressGuard address
you can send them spam by making up any old string to go with it.

For example,

with a BTYahoo! address of:
ParentaddressATbtinternet.com

if you have created disposable BTYahoo! AddressGuard addresses in the
format
"basename-uniquestringATyahoo.co.uk"

then ANYONE can make up new addresses such as

"basename-randomATyahoo.co.uk"
or
"basename-gibberishATyahoo.co.uk"
or
"basename-shdf34%ATyahoo.co.uk"

and send them off, and they will get delivered to the parent
btinternet.com address of the BTYahoo! sucker at the other end.

The only way you can prevent that, is to delete or abandon the PARENT
btinternet.com address- as the non-exitent (but working) disposable
addresses were never created in the first place they can't be deleted

That's really quite a seriously big problem. I wonder if anyone at BT or
Yahoo! is admitting how broken their system is?

[RayG]

Hmmm...

Just tried this and it appears that it was rejected correctly as you
would have expected:


- These recipients of your message have been processed by the mail server:
[basename]-loadof...@yahoo.co.uk; Failed; 5.3.0 (other or undefined
mail system status)

Remote MTA mx-eu.mail.am0.yahoodns.net: network error


- SMTP protocol diagnostic: 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't
have a yahoo.co.uk account ([basename]-loadof...@yahoo.co.uk) [-101]
- mta1058.mail.ir2.yahoo.com

[Robert]

Thanks for trying the test. I'd be grateful if others could give it a go
- there are quite a few different flavours of BTYahoo! email address
using different mail servers, of different vintages. Mine is a pretty
elderly address.

I've tried two parent addresses - it is rejected on one (a more recent
one), but the other one (the older one) is accepting random suffixes.
Had a lengthy conversation with support today as they rang back - but it
is the same old story - they seem unable to communicate with Yahoo!

rejected mail (bounce message)

"basename2-a...@yahoo.co.uk":
SMTP error from remote server after transfer of mail text:
host: mx-eu.mail.am0.yahoodns.net

delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.co.uk account

(basename2-a...@yahoo.co.uk) [-101] - mta1149.mail.ir2.yahoo.com

accepted mail (header extract)
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3
X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: *****@******mail.ir2.yahoo.com
X-Yahoo-ForwardOnly: from basename1-a...@yahoo.co.uk to 3rd
party domain
X-Yahoo-Forwarded: from basename1-a...@yahoo.co.uk to 3rd party
domain

I'll try the other 8 parent addresses later...

[Robert]

tried another BTY 2 parent addresses and created random disposables on
the existing AddressGuard basenames - one parent results in bounce, the
other parent gets mail with any old suffix.

So it is definitely more than one of my BT addresses affected.

[Dick]

Real one arrives, made up one bounces.