4 ms·

This seems ill-advised as it mostly serves to increase the attack surface for data miners and spammers.

rantwasp 5y ago
hmm. not sure it’s ill-advised. I have a “burner” email in the about box and all the conversation I’ve had up until now were productive. YMMV
cpach 5y ago
It’s entirely optional of course! However, I’m fairly sure that no spammer has scraped my address from here. And obfuscation is possible for those inclined. For example, no spammer will (in practice) parse this contact information: echo 'Y0B0dW5uZWw1My5uZXQ=' | base64 --decode But for a human HN reader it’s fairly easy to decode.
- 0des 5y ago
  Also works with tr echo "fgbr@bczx.9c" | tr 'rbgfcxz9' 'plehodus'
  - kazinator 5y ago
    This version doesn't require the knowledge of any system or programming language: "To obtain my e-mail address reverse the following text from left to right, letter by letter: moc.elpmaxe@raboof". Note that grandparent cpach, if you check their profile, is actually relying on the good old (dot) (at) obfuscation system, and not the base64 command they proposed in the comment.
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  I would think twice about executing bash code from people's profiles. Sure, the prior probability of trolls is pretty low on HN, and I know that your specific snippet is safe, but it's easy to get fooled, even if you think you know what you are doing. See https://superuser.com/questions/996795/how-and-why-is-this-string-of-text-a-fork-bomb https://superuser.com/questions/996795/how-and-why-is-this-s....
  - mastazi 5y ago
    While I agree with you about executing snippets of unknown origin not being a good idea, I expect that the average HN user would at most need to copy the part in quotes, and they would be already familiar with the rest of that line.
    - MauranKilom 5y ago
      > copy the part in quotes ...which would still get you pwned for the snippet in the question I linked. Again, I know that for someone reasonably familiar with base64 and bash it's obvious that the base64 example is indeed safe. Maybe you want to filter out people that don't have that level of familiarity (or aren't naive enough to execute bash code they don't fully understand). That's both very arbitrary and unnecessary though - HN is quite diverse. But of course, it's also up to everyone what they do or don't put in their profile.
      - mastazi 5y ago
        I stand corrected, thanks for the link, from that one I followed this link which is even more interesting as it explains the process of creating that snippet: https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/blog/?p=766 https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/blog/?p=766
  - nuker 5y ago
    > I would think twice about executing bash code from people's profiles Perl is better, safest language, write only
- kazinator 5y ago
  This sort of thing has worked in specific Usenet newsgroups. If you're posting to comp.unix.programmer or comp.unix.shell, everyone there understands what it is, and that it's safe. Then in the next newsgroup over, like comp.lang.lisp, you have the Lisp version of it, and so on. Not so sure about HN. Sure it's "Hacker" News, but the audience is a bit broader than just native speakers of Unixese. You never know who might go looking for you through your HN profile.
- kazinator 5y ago
  > I’m fairly sure that no spammer has scraped my address from here. In my HN profile, I use a unique throw-away address that is specific to this site. It's been harvested in the past. I think only once? At most twice, in any case. My currently installed alias, the one with a 997-169-9629 local part before the domain, was created on "2020-07-01 16:14 PDT". Almost exactly a year and a month ago. It was used for a couple of legitimate mails; no spam so far.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    Similar stats for me since 2016: - only one piece of complete spam - one targeted commercial outreach (which actually ended up being useful) - four people following up on comments that ended up being interesting conversations. I even went for coffee with one. - one person who evidently confused my username and thought I was @pg
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I'm going to err on the side of caution and just leave my account blank. I don't see why I should put my neck on the line to improve someone else's browsing experience.
  - scubbo 5y ago
    While you are of course entitled to protect your privacy however you see fit, the original post was suggesting that _both of you_ might benefit from further interactions.
- weavie 5y ago
  I like this. Base64 it is!
- gabrielsroka 5y ago
  Mine's a bookmarklet.
OminousWeapons 5y ago
You could set up forwarding with Anonaddy, Blur, or SimpleLogin such that you could disable the address the minute you noticed spam originating from it. Alternatively, set up a SMTP redirector: https://github.com/bluscreenofjeff/Red-Team-Infrastructure-Wiki/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/bluscreenofjeff/Red-Team-Infrastructure-W...
MattGaiser 5y ago
You can have a more public facing email.

hmm. not sure it’s ill-advised. I have a “burner” email in the about box and all the conversation I’ve had up until now were productive. YMMV

cpach 5y ago

It’s entirely optional of course! However, I’m fairly sure that no spammer has scraped my address from here. And obfuscation is possible for those inclined. For example, no spammer will (in practice) parse this contact information: echo 'Y0B0dW5uZWw1My5uZXQ=' | base64 --decode But for a human HN reader it’s fairly easy to decode.

0des 5y ago
Also works with tr echo "fgbr@bczx.9c" | tr 'rbgfcxz9' 'plehodus'
- kazinator 5y ago
  This version doesn't require the knowledge of any system or programming language: "To obtain my e-mail address reverse the following text from left to right, letter by letter: moc.elpmaxe@raboof". Note that grandparent cpach, if you check their profile, is actually relying on the good old (dot) (at) obfuscation system, and not the base64 command they proposed in the comment.
MauranKilom 5y ago
I would think twice about executing bash code from people's profiles. Sure, the prior probability of trolls is pretty low on HN, and I know that your specific snippet is safe, but it's easy to get fooled, even if you think you know what you are doing. See https://superuser.com/questions/996795/how-and-why-is-this-string-of-text-a-fork-bomb https://superuser.com/questions/996795/how-and-why-is-this-s....
- mastazi 5y ago
  While I agree with you about executing snippets of unknown origin not being a good idea, I expect that the average HN user would at most need to copy the part in quotes, and they would be already familiar with the rest of that line.
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    > copy the part in quotes ...which would still get you pwned for the snippet in the question I linked. Again, I know that for someone reasonably familiar with base64 and bash it's obvious that the base64 example is indeed safe. Maybe you want to filter out people that don't have that level of familiarity (or aren't naive enough to execute bash code they don't fully understand). That's both very arbitrary and unnecessary though - HN is quite diverse. But of course, it's also up to everyone what they do or don't put in their profile.
    - mastazi 5y ago
      I stand corrected, thanks for the link, from that one I followed this link which is even more interesting as it explains the process of creating that snippet: https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/blog/?p=766 https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/blog/?p=766
- nuker 5y ago
  > I would think twice about executing bash code from people's profiles Perl is better, safest language, write only
kazinator 5y ago
This sort of thing has worked in specific Usenet newsgroups. If you're posting to comp.unix.programmer or comp.unix.shell, everyone there understands what it is, and that it's safe. Then in the next newsgroup over, like comp.lang.lisp, you have the Lisp version of it, and so on. Not so sure about HN. Sure it's "Hacker" News, but the audience is a bit broader than just native speakers of Unixese. You never know who might go looking for you through your HN profile.
kazinator 5y ago
> I’m fairly sure that no spammer has scraped my address from here. In my HN profile, I use a unique throw-away address that is specific to this site. It's been harvested in the past. I think only once? At most twice, in any case. My currently installed alias, the one with a 997-169-9629 local part before the domain, was created on "2020-07-01 16:14 PDT". Almost exactly a year and a month ago. It was used for a couple of legitimate mails; no spam so far.
- paulgb 5y ago
  Similar stats for me since 2016: - only one piece of complete spam - one targeted commercial outreach (which actually ended up being useful) - four people following up on comments that ended up being interesting conversations. I even went for coffee with one. - one person who evidently confused my username and thought I was @pg
smoldesu 5y ago
I'm going to err on the side of caution and just leave my account blank. I don't see why I should put my neck on the line to improve someone else's browsing experience.
- scubbo 5y ago
  While you are of course entitled to protect your privacy however you see fit, the original post was suggesting that _both of you_ might benefit from further interactions.
weavie 5y ago
I like this. Base64 it is!
gabrielsroka 5y ago
Mine's a bookmarklet.

OminousWeapons 5y ago

You could set up forwarding with Anonaddy, Blur, or SimpleLogin such that you could disable the address the minute you noticed spam originating from it. Alternatively, set up a SMTP redirector: https://github.com/bluscreenofjeff/Red-Team-Infrastructure-Wiki/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/bluscreenofjeff/Red-Team-Infrastructure-W...

MattGaiser 5y ago

You can have a more public facing email.