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Yeah. Try using wildcard email accounts together with a uncommon TLD, and people ask me if I work at their place all the time. Last time I booked a car at Hert

Yeah. Try using wildcard email accounts together with a uncommon TLD, and people ask me if I work at their place all the time. Last time I booked a car at Hertz: > Me: My email is hertz@capableweb.work > Agent: Woah, you work here at Hertz? That's so cool > Me: sure, can you remind me of the employee discount again? So many email validations fail with a uncommon gTLD that I started switching everything to a .com domain instead. Sometimes I even get rejected when my email address contains the company name... "Sorry, your email seems invalid" is all I get, but changing one letter of the company name makes it pass the validation...

athenot 6y ago
Same experience, though I never tried to get a discount out of it.
- capableweb 6y ago
  In that case she tried to apply the discount via my email or something like that, but she said it failed. I blamed on it that I was a new employee and I'm a rush, so nevermind, let's proceed normally. I'm not sure I would actually accept it if it went through, but I'm always curious to see if it works sometime.
wcfields 6y ago
From doing agency/marketing work for numerous large corps, I can tell you that many have a straight up block on corpname on any email name or domain to prevent phishing.
- hamburglar 6y ago
  Yes, I recently got a new chromecast, which now requires a google account to set up via the google home app. I knew I was never going to use this single-purpose account for anything real so I decided to make the name very descriptive and tried to put “googlehome” in the identifier but google would not let me get away with the string “google” anywhere in it. Ended up with “GewgleHome.”
- lupire 6y ago
  I've never seen that and I have dozens of company@me.example emails signed up.
Theory5 6y ago
As a security person its hard as heck training (some of) our users to understand how basic domain formats work. We use a phishing simulation service, and outside of certain content,putting part or all of our company name in the domain but adding other words/underscores/etc is what tricks a lot of people. I tend to explain how it works in a basic format, and often you can see the light bulb go off when I point out how a subdomain works and why an underscore or dash creates a whole new domain anybody can register while a subdomain is something our company can only create/use (mind you, I'm not going to confuse them by explaining how this can be abused, these people i talk to about this are having enough trouble grasping the basics).
- capableweb 6y ago
  As a human who had to describe the internet, computers and email addresses to some of our older population, I agree, stuff is really hard for newcomers. Most of them barely understand the mouse abstraction, so getting them to understand some of the finer details of the modern computing world is a exercise in humongous patience.
- cmehdy 6y ago
  This stuff is not really well made for normal people, to be honest. Just look at all the discussions and troubles (tickets, misunderstandings, security risks) related to email and hyperlink parsers.. It took me a while to know that FQDNs can (and sometimest must?) start at root with a period, meaning every address you've ever typed could have finished with a period (news.ycombinator.com.) and I recall some newspaper (NYT? News Yorker?) failing to test for that when people want to bypass their paywall. And this is a valid email address apparently: #!$%&’*+-/=?^_`{}|~@example.com RFCs/codified norms by tech people are just weird to normal people.
  - ableal 6y ago
    Please stop downvoting this. If not an unpleasant truth, it's at least a widely held perception, which must have a reason. (And I suspect that reason is because it's true ...) > this is a valid email address apparently: #!$%&’*+-/=?^_`{}|~@example.com If so, that's actually the same as #!$%&’*@example.com (mail user 'foo+bar' is the same as 'foo'). Many webforms/DBs don't know that.
spoonjim 6y ago
Be careful using illegitimate car rental codes. Sometimes they look so cheap because they cancel a lot of your insurances, because your employer carries those insurances itself. So if you crash or the car is damaged, the clerk says, “Don’t worry Hertz Corporate will pick that up” but of course when they discover you are not an employee they will not.
- capableweb 6y ago
  I'm sorry, did you reply to the wrong comment? I'm trying to understand where "illegitimate car rental codes" comes from here, as I never mentioned that or anything related to it. I agree with you, just trying to understand how it's connected to what I wrote initially.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    They are referencing the line about the employee discount.
  - prostanac 6y ago
    They are talking about this line: > Me: sure, can you remind me of the employee discount again? Which suggests that you would/did ask for (an employee) discount code when renting from that company.
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    If you use a discount code, say the Boeing discount code when you rent at Seattle Airport, Hertz will cancel any insurance off the price because Boeing covers those risks itself for its employees. But, if you’re not a Boeing employee and you crash, you’re not insured by Boeing and you’re not insured by Hertz.
- lupire 6y ago
  No one wants car rental insurance anyway. Especially not Hertz, who doesn't honor claims anyway and is thankfully bankrupt.
  - 6y ago
vultour 6y ago
My favourite is when the validation rejects anything with the service name in the email. I wonder whether it's to prevent somebody registering <anything>@<service> as a joke, or a really bad attempt at preventing <service>@mailinator.
- shakna 6y ago
  It's because it is a common spam action to use <site>@<free_email> when blasting out stuff. It's also common to try and use <something>@<site> in either/or the to/reply-to fields for spambots. So, it is easier to blacklist it altogether.
- fencepost 6y ago
  Well that would have caused me problems when Oracle started requiring registration for some form of Java downloads. They haven't spammed that though, I don't think I've ever received any actual email to the "oracleblowsgoats" address. Probably keeps any sales droids from even bothering with me as well.
codethief 6y ago
Aw man, this exact situation happened to me last time I rented a car with Sixt. I wish I had thought of this genius line of yours, > Me: sure, can you remind me of the employee discount again? Sooo… did it work?
hinkley 6y ago
On just meeting a girl in school whose last name was the first name of a lead actor in a popular TV show, I started blurting out “Are you related to X” and my brain was already sending X to my mouth before I realized no, stupid, that’s not how names work. Turns out she’s a nice girl, and she answered happily, “no, but that would be cool”. I smiled back while I died a little inside. It’s always possible the person figures out this is not right before they get to the juicy bit. But I’ve been wrong before.
- toast0 6y ago
  My spouse got that a lot growing up, sadly she now sometimes gets another one since she took my last name. Thankfully the new actor is not very relevant anymore so it doesn't happen often.
fortran77 6y ago
I once owned "firstname.to" I figured it would be easy to tell people my email is firstname@firstname.to and have them use it, spell it right, and remember it. Nope. It confused the hell out of people.
rhabarba 6y ago
I wrote libvldmail for that: https://github.com/dertuxmalwieder/libvldmail https://github.com/dertuxmalwieder/libvldmail Sadly, it is poorly adopted.

athenot 6y ago

Same experience, though I never tried to get a discount out of it.

capableweb 6y ago
In that case she tried to apply the discount via my email or something like that, but she said it failed. I blamed on it that I was a new employee and I'm a rush, so nevermind, let's proceed normally. I'm not sure I would actually accept it if it went through, but I'm always curious to see if it works sometime.

wcfields 6y ago

From doing agency/marketing work for numerous large corps, I can tell you that many have a straight up block on corpname on any email name or domain to prevent phishing.

hamburglar 6y ago
Yes, I recently got a new chromecast, which now requires a google account to set up via the google home app. I knew I was never going to use this single-purpose account for anything real so I decided to make the name very descriptive and tried to put “googlehome” in the identifier but google would not let me get away with the string “google” anywhere in it. Ended up with “GewgleHome.”
lupire 6y ago
I've never seen that and I have dozens of company@me.example emails signed up.

Theory5 6y ago

As a security person its hard as heck training (some of) our users to understand how basic domain formats work. We use a phishing simulation service, and outside of certain content,putting part or all of our company name in the domain but adding other words/underscores/etc is what tricks a lot of people. I tend to explain how it works in a basic format, and often you can see the light bulb go off when I point out how a subdomain works and why an underscore or dash creates a whole new domain anybody can register while a subdomain is something our company can only create/use (mind you, I'm not going to confuse them by explaining how this can be abused, these people i talk to about this are having enough trouble grasping the basics).

capableweb 6y ago
As a human who had to describe the internet, computers and email addresses to some of our older population, I agree, stuff is really hard for newcomers. Most of them barely understand the mouse abstraction, so getting them to understand some of the finer details of the modern computing world is a exercise in humongous patience.
cmehdy 6y ago
This stuff is not really well made for normal people, to be honest. Just look at all the discussions and troubles (tickets, misunderstandings, security risks) related to email and hyperlink parsers.. It took me a while to know that FQDNs can (and sometimest must?) start at root with a period, meaning every address you've ever typed could have finished with a period (news.ycombinator.com.) and I recall some newspaper (NYT? News Yorker?) failing to test for that when people want to bypass their paywall. And this is a valid email address apparently: #!$%&’*+-/=?^_`{}|~@example.com RFCs/codified norms by tech people are just weird to normal people.
- ableal 6y ago
  Please stop downvoting this. If not an unpleasant truth, it's at least a widely held perception, which must have a reason. (And I suspect that reason is because it's true ...) > this is a valid email address apparently: #!$%&’*+-/=?^_`{}|~@example.com If so, that's actually the same as #!$%&’*@example.com (mail user 'foo+bar' is the same as 'foo'). Many webforms/DBs don't know that.

spoonjim 6y ago

Be careful using illegitimate car rental codes. Sometimes they look so cheap because they cancel a lot of your insurances, because your employer carries those insurances itself. So if you crash or the car is damaged, the clerk says, “Don’t worry Hertz Corporate will pick that up” but of course when they discover you are not an employee they will not.

capableweb 6y ago
I'm sorry, did you reply to the wrong comment? I'm trying to understand where "illegitimate car rental codes" comes from here, as I never mentioned that or anything related to it. I agree with you, just trying to understand how it's connected to what I wrote initially.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  They are referencing the line about the employee discount.
- prostanac 6y ago
  They are talking about this line: > Me: sure, can you remind me of the employee discount again? Which suggests that you would/did ask for (an employee) discount code when renting from that company.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  If you use a discount code, say the Boeing discount code when you rent at Seattle Airport, Hertz will cancel any insurance off the price because Boeing covers those risks itself for its employees. But, if you’re not a Boeing employee and you crash, you’re not insured by Boeing and you’re not insured by Hertz.
lupire 6y ago
No one wants car rental insurance anyway. Especially not Hertz, who doesn't honor claims anyway and is thankfully bankrupt.
- 6y ago

vultour 6y ago

My favourite is when the validation rejects anything with the service name in the email. I wonder whether it's to prevent somebody registering <anything>@<service> as a joke, or a really bad attempt at preventing <service>@mailinator.

shakna 6y ago
It's because it is a common spam action to use <site>@<free_email> when blasting out stuff. It's also common to try and use <something>@<site> in either/or the to/reply-to fields for spambots. So, it is easier to blacklist it altogether.
fencepost 6y ago
Well that would have caused me problems when Oracle started requiring registration for some form of Java downloads. They haven't spammed that though, I don't think I've ever received any actual email to the "oracleblowsgoats" address. Probably keeps any sales droids from even bothering with me as well.

codethief 6y ago

Aw man, this exact situation happened to me last time I rented a car with Sixt. I wish I had thought of this genius line of yours, > Me: sure, can you remind me of the employee discount again? Sooo… did it work?

hinkley 6y ago

On just meeting a girl in school whose last name was the first name of a lead actor in a popular TV show, I started blurting out “Are you related to X” and my brain was already sending X to my mouth before I realized no, stupid, that’s not how names work. Turns out she’s a nice girl, and she answered happily, “no, but that would be cool”. I smiled back while I died a little inside. It’s always possible the person figures out this is not right before they get to the juicy bit. But I’ve been wrong before.

toast0 6y ago
My spouse got that a lot growing up, sadly she now sometimes gets another one since she took my last name. Thankfully the new actor is not very relevant anymore so it doesn't happen often.

fortran77 6y ago

I once owned "firstname.to" I figured it would be easy to tell people my email is firstname@firstname.to and have them use it, spell it right, and remember it. Nope. It confused the hell out of people.

rhabarba 6y ago

I wrote libvldmail for that: https://github.com/dertuxmalwieder/libvldmail https://github.com/dertuxmalwieder/libvldmail Sadly, it is poorly adopted.