8 ms·
Show HN: Maskmail – anonymous email address service
- perseaalexandra 8y agoThis looks extremely similar to https://burnermail.io https://burnermail.io. And they're free
- csergiu 8y agoIt kinda looks like it's almost a 1 to 1 clone of burnermail.io lol
- jedberg 8y agoNice idea, but I suspect if it gets any traction, many services will just block maskmail addresses. That's why mailinator uses 100s of different domains and makes it really hard to get a list of all of them.
- jlis 8y agoThat's a good point. I'd let users pay for using their own domains.
- jedberg 8y agoThat could be interesting, but then what do they need you for? I can already do that with gmail. I just set up a domain on google apps and then tell it to deliver any email address to my main email. In fact I do that already (see my profile).
- jpalomaki 8y agoPrice, convenience. Google Apps is not free. For this particular use case you might be able to provide better user experience. Maybe integrate the custom domain registration and automatic DNS config to the UI.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ianwalter 8y agoThe convenience factor is definitely there. A browser plugin that automatically creates an email address that you can later turn on/off with a couple clicks instead of going through the domain setup in gmail (or in my case fastmail)? I'd be interested in it.
- dmortin 8y agoWhich also means users can't use them either. Sometimes I want to use a different mailinator domain, but loading the homepage usually only shows the known domains.
- WorldMaker 8y agoYou could always point your own domain at it instead.
- shaneos 8y ago(co-creator of Maskmail here). That's in our plan for future updates, at the least allowing users to opt in to using many different domains. Many other features in the pipeline too, please feel free to send any ideas you have to support@maskmail.net, or tweet at us @mask_mail Hope you find value in the service!
- scrollaway 8y agoWill you add support for Bring-Your-Own-Domain? This HN commenter is definitely interested.
- shaneos 8y agoWe hadn't considered it, but it's an interesting idea. We'd have to think through how to make it work, there'd be some interesting interplay with routing and mail servers.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ianwalter 8y agoYea I would want this too. I think it makes more sense than Maskmail just adding a bunch of other domains that can get blocked too.
- ryan-c 8y agoMany services block all mailinator domains by simply doing a live MX record lookup and noting the domain is pointed at mailinator (there are SaaS companies that offer this via an API). Another thing I've noticed is blocking email addresses on domains that do catch-all receiving. It's really frustrating. I've used sneakemail for a very long time, but I've found that it's actually been resulting in worse things than simply having my registration blocked. * Credit Karma banned my account (that I'd had for eight years) * HP canceled my order for a laptop AFTER IT SHIPPED, recalling the package I've had to switch to sneakemail only for things that I wouldn't provide my name to anyway.
- jlis 8y agoGreat landingpage dude! Was building something like that a while ago for myself until I realized, I'd just use the email+something@gmail.com feature. But anyways, great idea! Wish you all the success or at least some decent side money.
- hda111 8y agothis +something neither anoymizes your real address nor prevents it someone to spam your real address forever
- qluml 8y agoI think it is a good way to only register in sites. For collaborating is not good, because "reply-to" header is set to the real sender. This a only one way to `mask` email. Answering thought masked mail is not possible.
- moltar 8y agoLooks like Trashmail but more $
- Tepix 8y agoWhy not just append a unique marker to your mail address? Some services support this. For gmail i believe you can use "+" as the separator: I.e. your email address is victim8384@gmail.com and you want to give your email address to a party called "spammer", you give them victim8384+spammer@gmail.com instead. Once you start receiving spam to that address, you block it.
- jedberg 8y agoMost spammers know about that trick, and their software automatically strips the + and anything after it. Their software has been doing that for about 20 years already, sadly. The + trick really only works with people you trust already. Also, + addressing is in the RFC, so pretty much every mail server supports it. Gmail also added . (dot) as a non-counted character, so you can put as many of those as you want into the user field, but most spam software is catching onto that too.
- gyvastis 8y agoI've actually thought of this a while back and thought "wouldn't that be awesome?". Kudos to the ones who developed it!
- danieka 8y agoMe and a a colleague discussed this just last week and even considered building something ourselves. Good thing you beat us to it, you seem to have done a marvellous job. The one thing we did some thinking about is how to avoid getting blocked. We run a SaaS and have blocked several hundred domains such as mailinator because of the high rates of fraud. Anyway, good luck!
- arisAlexis 8y agoAnother approach is a service I built called veropost (dotcom) that is an email paywall so the sender needs to send a tiny tiny bit of Bitcoin in order to reach you.
- ruduhudi 8y agodnt.abine.com
- stanislavb 8y agoGood job, mate! Seems pretty useful. Who would you name your top competitors?
- Promarged 8y ago33mail probably...
- sjwright 8y agoCool, another domain name to add to my list of disposable email services. Done.
- mcjiggerlog 8y agoBut why?
- herghost 8y agonot OP, but I imagine it might be one of: it's valuable (sellable) information, fraud is more likely to come from anonymous/disposable email address sign-ups for services, tracking is more valuable when tied to a (semi-) verified/verifiable identity, valid email addresses can be enriched via other sources of information people might have access to?
- sjwright 8y agoTo thwart low-effort drive-by anonymous abuse. (I also block TOR. Pure anonymity is not a service I choose to offer, because it is inevitably abused and I don’t have the time or resources to deal with it.)
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoI don't understand one thing: the whole point of a disposable e-mail address it's that you just can use it instantly and never reveal your real e-mail addresses to anyone. That's why Mailinator got so popular. But in order to use Maskmail I have to register - what's the point? I was thinking I could give it a try because it's new so it will work for a while for sites that for some strange reason block disposable e-mail addresses, but registering simply defeats the purpose.
- detaro 8y agoNote it says "anonymous", not "disposable". > the whole point of a disposable e-mail address it's that you just can use it instantly and never reveal your real e-mail addresses to anyone For you maybe. For others the point might be "never reveal my real e-mail address to the sites I give disposable addresses to, be able to keep receiving e-mails for some of them long-term and not having them publicly exposed to everyone that knows the address".
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoWhy not create a Gmail account for that purpose then? (Or Yahoo/Outlook if you're concerned with data collection.) The amount of hassle is the same. With Mailinator I just type khdgfkasjdhfg in the register field, then then type Ctrl+L "maili" [Enter], paste khdgfkasjdhfg in the (already active) "Check Any Inbox" field and bang! - I'm already there, always. Maybe there's something I don't see here.
- detaro 8y agoCreating a new gmail account isn't a one-click thing, adding a new address to Maskmail is, at least according to their website.
- shaneos 8y agoIf you create a new Gmail account, as many people do, you can still be tracked with that. Using the same email address on multiple sites allows data aggregators to match your profiles from each site to build a very comprehensive picture of you. Of course, you could create hundreds of Gmail accounts, but then you have to manage hundreds of inboxes, which you won't do well leading to you missing lots of emails. Maskmail essentially does this for you with extreme convenience.
- abetusk 8y agoA bit off topic but does anyone know of an email service that doesn't require a pre-existing email account, doesn't require ID, is TOR friendly and accepts cryptocurrency as payment? It seems like this should be an obvious service but I have a hard time finding one.
- asfdsfggtfd 8y agoNot everything listed but mailinator works in Tor Browser... Might be a starting point for the pre-existing email account...
- detaro 8y agohttps://mailbox.org https://mailbox.org https://protonmail.ch https://protonmail.ch
- muvek 8y agoCorrect me if I am wrong, but this is the same idea as spamgourmet.com, right?
- coaxial 8y agoI love this service, whoever runs it: thank you!
- helios893 8y agoComplete anonymity you say? Please show me how you bypass "lawful search".
- JulienRbrt 8y agoThere is as well anonbox.net[1] from the CCC which is pretty useful too, even if its functionalities are a little bit different [1] https://anonbox.net/ https://anonbox.net/
- acreux 8y agoWe also do the same thing at https://theothermail.com https://theothermail.com except you have 100 emails for free
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- maroonparty 8y agothis is a email masking service by using anynoymous email adress unlike many others which only provides anonymous email address nice idea!
- stamps 8y agoBlur by Albine[1] has been my preferred anonymizer. Though my main appeal is the burner credit cards. [1] https://www.abine.com/index.html https://www.abine.com/index.html
- ralphc 8y agoI try to create an account, put in a username and matching passwords, but the "create account" button gives me a circle-bar "you can't do that" pointer, with no explanation. Chrome on OSX.