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As a compromise, I use a catchall email adress, so @«my HN handle, without numbers».me comes to my single mailbox. Then I use sieve filtering to sort the emails

As a compromise, I use a catchall email adress, so @«my HN handle, without numbers».me comes to my single mailbox. Then I use sieve filtering to sort the emails into folders based on the address they're sent to; if there's no special filing rule, it comes to my inbox. So, when I want to sign up for a new service, I can just pick an email (usually based on the domain name), no setup required (unless I want it to be filled into some particular folder). The downside is that you (and spammers) can* send email to any random address and reach me, but in practice I have not found that to be a problem; I don't actually get spam at addresses which are not posted somewhere online. And it's in your best interest to contact me at a more specific email, because if I ever do get widespread spam, I'll swap the default rule to mark as spam, and only allow specific addresses. I recommend hn+«your handle»@«my domain». On the off chance: I'm moving to NYC soon and am in the job market; feel free to shoot me an email if you're hiring at a company that's solving real problems for humans (not, say, selling ads).

xoa 5y ago
Replying to this since it's the highest one at this point, but also a response to @piaste and @distances: I know about catch-all accounts, and more complex wildcard options that can exist. But to me those don't really quite hit all the use cases that site-specific ones do when it comes to spam and such, and I have seen emails get leaked from hacks or just plain "we share only with trusted 3rd parties!" buried somewhere. And I suspect if they become popular enough it's only a matter of time before spammers add some sort of "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" to their logic. On the other hand they are indeed zero friction, so a valid option depending on where in the stack one wants to handle things. The single other significant issue I can think of which has come up actually is when one desires to actually use email for two-way communication with a site, not just receiving stuff. Sending from aliases isn't really practical, spoofing the from address even from the same domain has a high chance of trigger all sorts of spam protection for obvious reasons. I'm sure there is probably some way to handle it from one's own server but that has its own challenges. So sending mail ends up being from a different address as the account, which most places don't seem to care about but seems to hit automated edge cases and snag things up once in a while.
- smichel17 5y ago
  > I have seen emails get leaked from hacks or just plain "we share only with trusted 3rd parties!" buried somewhere. This is why using a different email with each website is glorious! If example.com leaks my example.com@«my domain» address, I can enable stricter filters for that address. > I suspect if they become popular enough it's only a matter of time before spammers add some sort of "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" to their logic. This isn't game-over, either. As I noted, if this ever starts happening, I'll change my sieve filter so that any address without a filter rule gets sent to the trash, instead of my inbox. This does mean I lose the "zero friction" benefit, but adding a new address would still be just a single line in a text file. And it's much less lock-in than using the web interface of some given email provider to set up new aliases, since I can copy my filtering config over to any provider which supports sieve filters (and wildcard addresses). That said, I don't think this will ever be a problem. Because "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" is a pattern that makes you very easy to identify as a spammer. Given the possible address space, I don't see a scenario where the chance of hitting a real mailbox is worth the risk of blowing your cover and getting your mail server blocked.

xoa 5y ago

Replying to this since it's the highest one at this point, but also a response to @piaste and @distances: I know about catch-all accounts, and more complex wildcard options that can exist. But to me those don't really quite hit all the use cases that site-specific ones do when it comes to spam and such, and I have seen emails get leaked from hacks or just plain "we share only with trusted 3rd parties!" buried somewhere. And I suspect if they become popular enough it's only a matter of time before spammers add some sort of "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" to their logic. On the other hand they are indeed zero friction, so a valid option depending on where in the stack one wants to handle things. The single other significant issue I can think of which has come up actually is when one desires to actually use email for two-way communication with a site, not just receiving stuff. Sending from aliases isn't really practical, spoofing the from address even from the same domain has a high chance of trigger all sorts of spam protection for obvious reasons. I'm sure there is probably some way to handle it from one's own server but that has its own challenges. So sending mail ends up being from a different address as the account, which most places don't seem to care about but seems to hit automated edge cases and snag things up once in a while.

smichel17 5y ago
> I have seen emails get leaked from hacks or just plain "we share only with trusted 3rd parties!" buried somewhere. This is why using a different email with each website is glorious! If example.com leaks my example.com@«my domain» address, I can enable stricter filters for that address. > I suspect if they become popular enough it's only a matter of time before spammers add some sort of "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" to their logic. This isn't game-over, either. As I noted, if this ever starts happening, I'll change my sieve filter so that any address without a filter rule gets sent to the trash, instead of my inbox. This does mean I lose the "zero friction" benefit, but adding a new address would still be just a single line in a text file. And it's much less lock-in than using the web interface of some given email provider to set up new aliases, since I can copy my filtering config over to any provider which supports sieve filters (and wildcard addresses). That said, I don't think this will ever be a problem. Because "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" is a pattern that makes you very easy to identify as a spammer. Given the possible address space, I don't see a scenario where the chance of hitting a real mailbox is worth the risk of blowing your cover and getting your mail server blocked.