I also think it's unlikely Mudcat had anything to do with it, or we'd all be having problems.

Other ways spammers can get your address include entering it at websites, posting to newsgroups and group e-mails which people forward without trimming the headers. I'm pretty sure I got my address collected that way a couple of times. (One of the reasons I hate petitions and chain letters.)

Other than group e-mails which I can't do anything about, I don't enter my address at websites unless they have a statement they don't deal with third parties. I alter the "reply to" address in newsgroups, and if I post it here, I make a clicky so the address doesn't show. I don't reply if the message says "e-mail us if you want to be removed from our list" because it just lets them know it's a valid address.

I get about one piece of spam a month.

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Whoops - sorry Joe. Sent it in before I saw that "Please start another thread" request.