I've had literally hundreds of fake sign-ups for a newsletter I run. Every one of them has the username "mxihuuwfnxxpjea." They all have email addresses in the format first.last+characterstring@gmail.com. Unlike with the username, the text after the plus sign isn't always the same.
I've just been manually deleting them every few days. But I'm curious what the angle is here. How does someone benefit from doing something like this?
Anyone know?
Bodhipaksa
npub1ar…37dmm
2026-04-19 22:10:14 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1arctujurnrqen3l6tmt62fw2kt0heddg9wphsqegp47tewvc73rs837dmmSeen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2026-04-19 22:10:14 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "5c54d62d5bfc41f38aecfce449c31995e6e68dc6aa1db814b0b992c708bc54d0",
"pubkey": "e8f0be4b8398c199c7fa5ed7a525cab2df7cb5a82b837803280d7cbcb998f447",
"created_at": 1776636614,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://mastodon.scot/@bodhipaksa/116433657179205521",
"web"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://mastodon.scot/users/bodhipaksa/statuses/116433657179205521",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://mastodon.scot/users/bodhipaksa/statuses/116433657179205521",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "I've had literally hundreds of fake sign-ups for a newsletter I run. Every one of them has the username \"mxihuuwfnxxpjea.\" They all have email addresses in the format first.last+characterstring@gmail.com. Unlike with the username, the text after the plus sign isn't always the same. \n\nI've just been manually deleting them every few days. But I'm curious what the angle is here. How does someone benefit from doing something like this?\n\nAnyone know?",
"sig": "ffd5dd22be704bab8480b2354c394578e3fcfbcfc9064d77a76bb30059f9b75a2776f71a62b9e923c9238b8f0d68c98727561ec728f88bdfaa7561fe9367b1ba"
}