GMail contact - misroute / security issue

[nicolai-nanog at chocolatine.org (Nicolai)]

On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 10:42:56PM -0500, Grant Taylor wrote:

> Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last
> name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first
> name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
> 
> I don't know if this is a "feature" or a "bug", but either way, it's
> disquieting my wife.  (Unhappy wife = unhappy life.)

Have your wife log in while omitting the dots, using e.g. "janeqpublic"
instead of "jane.q.public" as the username.  She'll see there's only
one account, and it's her's, and that someone just typed the wrong
address.

Most likely reason: gmail is so common that someone mistypes
johnsmith at example.com as johnsmith at gmail.com, not paying attention to
what they're doing.  It happens.

Nicolai