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True, unless you have a wildcard user for your domain. Whenever I give out my email, I typically add a unique identifier to the user name, so I can have someth
by derekp7 11y ago
True, unless you have a wildcard user for your domain. Whenever I give out my email, I typically add a unique identifier to the user name, so I can have something like "xyzHN@example.com". Then if I start getting spam, I know who leaked my email address.
The problem that happened then is someone was using random users@example.com causing the blowback spam to fill up my mail box. Until I added SPF, then hadn't had an issue since.
- varjag 11y agoThere is a standard syntax for subaddresses with '+' suffix, e.g. foo+oneoff@bar.com: the replies will end up at foo@bar.com. Wildcards in email domains are a bad idea and been so for many years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Sub-addressing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Sub-addressing
- justinlardinois 11y agoThe problem with using a standard convention for this sort of thing is that it's easy to detect and subvert (in this case, drop the + character and everything following it from the username). If I sign up for, say, a Sears mailing list with the address sears@justinlardinois.com, it's not possible to divine what my "real" email address is. What are the arguments for this being a bad idea?
- vhost- 11y agoThis is exactly what I do. I point everything in google apps to my primary account and then when an email from <service>@mydomain.com gets leaked, I just create an account for it in google apps and send everything to the trash.
- derekp7 11y agoI like to track down where I used the given email from -- you'd be surprised who leaks your email. Was going through my spam folder, found a bunch of virus-laden phishing emails sent to an address I used one time on Equifax's site to get my credit report.
- varjag 11y agoYou can just use one subscription address for all unimportant services, thus using e.g. subscription+sears@justinlardinois.com. > What are the arguments for this being a bad idea? It enables spammers and makes you vulnerable to their backscatter, and there is no good way around it.
- icebraining 11y agoYou can just use one subscription address for all unimportant services, thus using e.g. subscription+sears@justinlardinois.com. Yes, but if they drop the "+sears" part, you lose the tracking information. What do you mean by wildcard emails enabling spammers? Backscatter is not really a problem, I just filter non-whitelisted addresses to another folder which deletes them after a short while. Known problematic address get filtered to /dev/null. This is really easy to do with Sieve.