4 ms·

FastMail had some of the cleverest ideas for plus addressing. username+tag@fastmail.fm could be given away as tag@username.fastmail.fm

by ahalam 6y ago

D-Coder 6y ago
Panix.com has a similar feature. If you are dcoder@panix.com, you can use <anytag>@dcoder.users.panix.com, which avoids the problem of places that don't understand "+". I usually use companyname@dcoder.users.panix.com for each company I deal with. (Note, I am not actually "dcoder".) It's a little longer to read over the phone, but I've never had trouble with it. And I've been able to tell a couple of companies that their email databases had been hacked or stolen. Disclaimer: just a satisfied customer.
snorremd 6y ago
I used this for a few sites, but then stopped as I realized this would be a pain to change if I ever wanted to change to a different email provider. Wish every provider would support this as I’m sure spammers have caught on to the plus addressing scheme.
- Shorn 6y ago
  I run a paid service called Kopi (https://kopi.cloud https://kopi.cloud) that is meant to deal with exactly this issue. You can use a shared domain:`hackernews@snorremd.kopi.cloud` Or, after setting up an MX and a TXT DNS record, you can use your own domain: `hackernews@mail.snorremd.com`. You can change the "real address" of any "forwarder" (`snorremd.kopi.cloud`/`mail.snorremd.com`) to relay to any address you want, whenever you want. You can block individual addresses like `hackernews@mail.snorremd.com` with two clicks starting from your mail client. You can also configure individual addresses to redirect to RSS so you can read newsletters or other "chatty" services as part of your normal browsing habits.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dsr_ 6y ago
  The majority of spam [that gets past various RBLs] that I receive is completely ignorant of the dash addressing that I use. It's exactly the same as plus addressing but with a dash instead of a plus. Pharma spam, 419 scams, password leak crypto blackmail... remember that these miscreants rely on low costs to achieve their profits, so any sort of filtering is too expensive. They don't even filter out abuse@, postmaster@, hostmaster@, or mailer-daemon@.
- tyingq 6y ago
  This should work on gsuite, for example, if you use your own domain and set up a route for unknown users.
metaphor 6y ago
Why couldn't spammers just: s/(\w+)@(\w+)\.(fastmail\.fm)/\2@\3/g ...or equivalent?
- kop316 6y ago
  In that instance you can. What is also nice though is if you have a custom domain, you can set the custom domain to do the same thing AND have an alias. So for me, I have a few emails in my custom domain: {firstname}@example.com market@example.com (there's others, but it's not relavent to this discussion). market@example.com just goes straight to spam, as I don't use that email for anything. foo@market.example.com is used for each email instance. It works out extremely well.
  - mkskm 6y ago
    It looks like you can accomplish this directly with Fastmail as well using aliases, e.g. foo@marketalias.fastmail.com (or one of their pseudonyms).
jeremiahlee 6y ago
I really wish FastMail would add an option to use a minus instead of a plus since most forms properly handle minuses, but many do not properly handle pluses.
lawn 6y ago
Nowadays I just use tag@mydomain when I interact with websites.
- cm2187 6y ago
  Couldn’t agree more. If the website is breached, the login isn’t a login for any other website, and advertisers have a harder time correlating your identity, and if you get spam you know who is the culprit, and you can stop the spam by deleting the alias. With this, no need for any other antispam logic. Back to the mid 90s (which is a good thing as far as email traffic is concerned!).
  - loosescrews 6y ago
    I always do this as well. I knew for months before they announced it that Dropbox had been breached. Yes, they waited so long to announce that the thieves had started using the emails for spam.
- paulie_a 6y ago
  Now adays I simply don't care about spam. It goes in the spam box and is a wasted effort for the criminal
jph00 6y ago
I wrote that! I'm glad you like it. :) It's been nearly 20 years since I added that feature. I assumed at the time everyone would do it when they saw how handy it is. For some reason that didn't happen...
- glial 6y ago
  Just heard about it today, and just started using it today! Any other cool tricks I should know about?
- kayson 6y ago
  I use it too! It's fantastic
- mynegation 6y ago
  I used it, Jeremy. Since then I transitioned to sitename@mydomain.email but I still have quite a bit of legacy sitename@myusername.fastmail.fm
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Thank you! I use tagname@myusername.mydomain these days, and that's still my favorite feature!

FastMail had some of the cleverest ideas for plus addressing. username+tag@fastmail.fm could be given away as tag@username.fastmail.fm

by ahalam 6y ago

FastMail had some of the cleverest ideas for plus addressing. username+tag@fastmail.fm could be given away as tag@username.fastmail.fm

D-Coder 6y ago

Panix.com has a similar feature. If you are dcoder@panix.com, you can use <anytag>@dcoder.users.panix.com, which avoids the problem of places that don't understand "+". I usually use companyname@dcoder.users.panix.com for each company I deal with. (Note, I am not actually "dcoder".) It's a little longer to read over the phone, but I've never had trouble with it. And I've been able to tell a couple of companies that their email databases had been hacked or stolen. Disclaimer: just a satisfied customer.

snorremd 6y ago

I used this for a few sites, but then stopped as I realized this would be a pain to change if I ever wanted to change to a different email provider. Wish every provider would support this as I’m sure spammers have caught on to the plus addressing scheme.

Shorn 6y ago
I run a paid service called Kopi (https://kopi.cloud https://kopi.cloud) that is meant to deal with exactly this issue. You can use a shared domain:`hackernews@snorremd.kopi.cloud` Or, after setting up an MX and a TXT DNS record, you can use your own domain: `hackernews@mail.snorremd.com`. You can change the "real address" of any "forwarder" (`snorremd.kopi.cloud`/`mail.snorremd.com`) to relay to any address you want, whenever you want. You can block individual addresses like `hackernews@mail.snorremd.com` with two clicks starting from your mail client. You can also configure individual addresses to redirect to RSS so you can read newsletters or other "chatty" services as part of your normal browsing habits.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dsr_ 6y ago
The majority of spam [that gets past various RBLs] that I receive is completely ignorant of the dash addressing that I use. It's exactly the same as plus addressing but with a dash instead of a plus. Pharma spam, 419 scams, password leak crypto blackmail... remember that these miscreants rely on low costs to achieve their profits, so any sort of filtering is too expensive. They don't even filter out abuse@, postmaster@, hostmaster@, or mailer-daemon@.
tyingq 6y ago
This should work on gsuite, for example, if you use your own domain and set up a route for unknown users.

metaphor 6y ago

Why couldn't spammers just: s/(\w+)@(\w+)\.(fastmail\.fm)/\2@\3/g ...or equivalent?

kop316 6y ago
In that instance you can. What is also nice though is if you have a custom domain, you can set the custom domain to do the same thing AND have an alias. So for me, I have a few emails in my custom domain: {firstname}@example.com market@example.com (there's others, but it's not relavent to this discussion). market@example.com just goes straight to spam, as I don't use that email for anything. foo@market.example.com is used for each email instance. It works out extremely well.
- mkskm 6y ago
  It looks like you can accomplish this directly with Fastmail as well using aliases, e.g. foo@marketalias.fastmail.com (or one of their pseudonyms).

jeremiahlee 6y ago

I really wish FastMail would add an option to use a minus instead of a plus since most forms properly handle minuses, but many do not properly handle pluses.

lawn 6y ago

Nowadays I just use tag@mydomain when I interact with websites.

cm2187 6y ago
Couldn’t agree more. If the website is breached, the login isn’t a login for any other website, and advertisers have a harder time correlating your identity, and if you get spam you know who is the culprit, and you can stop the spam by deleting the alias. With this, no need for any other antispam logic. Back to the mid 90s (which is a good thing as far as email traffic is concerned!).
- loosescrews 6y ago
  I always do this as well. I knew for months before they announced it that Dropbox had been breached. Yes, they waited so long to announce that the thieves had started using the emails for spam.
paulie_a 6y ago
Now adays I simply don't care about spam. It goes in the spam box and is a wasted effort for the criminal

jph00 6y ago

I wrote that! I'm glad you like it. :) It's been nearly 20 years since I added that feature. I assumed at the time everyone would do it when they saw how handy it is. For some reason that didn't happen...

glial 6y ago
Just heard about it today, and just started using it today! Any other cool tricks I should know about?
kayson 6y ago
I use it too! It's fantastic
mynegation 6y ago
I used it, Jeremy. Since then I transitioned to sitename@mydomain.email but I still have quite a bit of legacy sitename@myusername.fastmail.fm
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Thank you! I use tagname@myusername.mydomain these days, and that's still my favorite feature!