Being an uber geek, I can’t resist pottering around on my laptop even whilst on leave. With this workaholic behavior comes the occasional sending of email and the result is that more often than not, this time of year I receive an “out of office” autoresponder from the mailbox I am sending to. I totally get why people set this up, but I’ve always worried that by doing so, every spammer who you’ve been ignoring all year in the hope that they will go away, will now know that there is a real person at the end of your email address.

Am I worrying about nothing here or is this a real problem?