A spider-bot could.  Some spiders are programmed 
to search websites and harvest emails.  if you 
want to keep them from getting your email you 
should try formatting your email addy like I did 
above.  

I also have suddenly been under vast spammage.  I 
get around five+ messages at my school addy a 
day, and I've had that for more than two years 
without getting ANY.

My hotmail account is also overrun.  I went to 
check it yesterday and there were 213 spam mails 
in my folder (and I have the settings on 'high' 
protection) and only 43 in my junk mail one.

-_-