5 ms·

Curious, how trivially easy is that?

echoangle 2y ago
Some providers allow you to use Alias emails (I think google redirects mail to ia+mymail@gmail.com to mymail@gmail.com), and if you use your own domain, you can just use a catchall redirect and enter a random address (ia@mydomain.com which goes to catchall@mydomain.com).
drsim 2y ago
Many providers support plus addresses like bob+servicename@example.com. Servicename can be anything and doesn’t require any setup.
- duggan 2y ago
  The +, however is just a comment delimiter. All a service provider or malicious actor has to do is simply not include it when storing or publishing it to evade tracking. Stripping it is not uncommon for services to prevent duplicate accounts.
TheDong 2y ago
It's quite trivial. 1. Buy a domain. About $10/year for a .com 2. Buy a /24 ipv4 block with good reputation (maybe like $10k) 3. Get a rack in a nearby datacenter, rack up a BGP-capable router and your servers for redundancy to run email. Takes about $30k initial setup costs if you buy all new, and about $5k initial setup costs if you cut corners and buy used. It'll be $2k/mo after that, so less than the cost of 1 $100 avocado toast per day, quite affordable. 4. Setup your mailserver of choice, such as dovecot + postfix. Enable either a catch-all address, or use recipient_delimiters. The former means "anything@domain.com" works, and the latter means "user-anything@domain.com" works (assuming your recipiient_delimiters are '-'). I recommend using a real catchall. 5. Setup your spam setup, this is the hardest part. I have no guidance here. 6. Point your DNS over, setup SPF and DKIM records, test, and off you go! This should all take about 1 to 3 days if you know what you're doing. 7. Find out that some email will go to spam anyway because you're not using one of the big 4 email providers, but it can't be helped, and anyway no one uses email anymore. And after that, for less than $30k/year, you have email with catchall or subadressing support. Nice and easy. You can also pay Fastmail for email and use their "catchall" feature https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277942-Catch-all-wildcard-aliases https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277942-Ca... Or Google Apps also has a catchall feature. Then, after you do this, you can simply give internet archive the email address "internet-archive@mydomain.com", or generate a random string. If you forget the email you used, you can search your email history for the first email they sent you, and check the To field.
- 2Gkashmiri 2y ago
  Hold on. Why do you need a dc rackspace and a /24 just to have your email ?
  - TheDong 2y ago
    This is hacker news, we're all either founders who have 2 billion dollars in (illiquid) stock options, or FAANG employees making 600k/year, what else are we going to do if we want email? Sure, you could pay fastmail $40/year for this, but that's not really the hacker news spirit, and no one on this site knows how to count as low as $40. The real justifications you can give yourself: Shared VPS hosting pretty much all bans email, AWS, DO, etc all have ToS that say "no email" as anti-spam measures. Shared IP space will go straight to spam due to people having spammed on it in the past. Buy a /24 to ensure you don't go straight to spam. Rackspace ensures you actually own your email, at least moreso than with other shared hosting, and owning your email is important.
    - 2Gkashmiri 2y ago
      been using racknerd.com vps for last 3 years for running miab. ZERO problems so far. costs around $12/year+domain
    - account42 2y ago
      > Shared VPS hosting pretty much all bans email, AWS, DO, etc all have ToS that say "no email" as anti-spam measures. Complete FUD. Here is DO's acceptable use policy: https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy You can see that they explicitly have policies for email hosts. Here is a guide they host on how to setup a mail server: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-run-your-own-mail-server-with-mail-in-a-box-on-ubuntu-14-04 https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-run-... They forbid spamming, not all mail. > Shared IP space will go straight to spam due to people having spammed on it in the past. Buy a /24 to ensure you don't go straight to spam. I have had no problems with deliverability to Google from an IP on a shared block. I don't send marketing mails or any other kind of spam though. Microsoft blocks my IP but they are too small (outside businesses) for me to care to give them special snowflake treatment. Deliverability of your own mails is also irrelevant for the original discussion about using unique email addresses for signing up to services - you don't need to be able to send at all for that.
beAbU 2y ago
1/ Buy a domain of your choice 2/ Register an account on Migadu.com and pay them $20/year 3/ Configure your domain nameserver with the settings provided by Migadu 4/ Done.
JCharante 2y ago
I have an even easier approach: - have an iphone/mac w/ icloud+ - go into settings - add custom email - get redirected to login to cloudflare - buy/pick a domain for $12 - icloud+ automatically sets up the MX records on the domain via cloudflare - enable catch-all emails in icloud settings - Done! Takes about 10 minutes & icloud provides the email hosting without any additional fees
meindnoch 2y ago
1. Register domain on Cloudflare 2. Configure a catch-all forwarding address to your private GMail Done.
useless_foghorn 2y ago
I use Bitwarden coupled with AnonAddy (0) for simple and free on demand email alias generation. 0. https://bitwarden.com/help/generator/#username-types https://bitwarden.com/help/generator/#username-types
buildsjets 2y ago
Register an account on spamgourmet.com, move on with life.
LtdJorge 2y ago
Purelymail allows it

Some providers allow you to use Alias emails (I think google redirects mail to ia+mymail@gmail.com to mymail@gmail.com), and if you use your own domain, you can just use a catchall redirect and enter a random address (ia@mydomain.com which goes to catchall@mydomain.com).

drsim 2y ago

Many providers support plus addresses like bob+servicename@example.com. Servicename can be anything and doesn’t require any setup.

duggan 2y ago
The +, however is just a comment delimiter. All a service provider or malicious actor has to do is simply not include it when storing or publishing it to evade tracking. Stripping it is not uncommon for services to prevent duplicate accounts.

TheDong 2y ago

It's quite trivial. 1. Buy a domain. About $10/year for a .com 2. Buy a /24 ipv4 block with good reputation (maybe like $10k) 3. Get a rack in a nearby datacenter, rack up a BGP-capable router and your servers for redundancy to run email. Takes about $30k initial setup costs if you buy all new, and about $5k initial setup costs if you cut corners and buy used. It'll be $2k/mo after that, so less than the cost of 1 $100 avocado toast per day, quite affordable. 4. Setup your mailserver of choice, such as dovecot + postfix. Enable either a catch-all address, or use recipient_delimiters. The former means "anything@domain.com" works, and the latter means "user-anything@domain.com" works (assuming your recipiient_delimiters are '-'). I recommend using a real catchall. 5. Setup your spam setup, this is the hardest part. I have no guidance here. 6. Point your DNS over, setup SPF and DKIM records, test, and off you go! This should all take about 1 to 3 days if you know what you're doing. 7. Find out that some email will go to spam anyway because you're not using one of the big 4 email providers, but it can't be helped, and anyway no one uses email anymore. And after that, for less than $30k/year, you have email with catchall or subadressing support. Nice and easy. You can also pay Fastmail for email and use their "catchall" feature https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277942-Catch-all-wildcard-aliases https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277942-Ca... Or Google Apps also has a catchall feature. Then, after you do this, you can simply give internet archive the email address "internet-archive@mydomain.com", or generate a random string. If you forget the email you used, you can search your email history for the first email they sent you, and check the To field.

2Gkashmiri 2y ago
Hold on. Why do you need a dc rackspace and a /24 just to have your email ?
- TheDong 2y ago
  This is hacker news, we're all either founders who have 2 billion dollars in (illiquid) stock options, or FAANG employees making 600k/year, what else are we going to do if we want email? Sure, you could pay fastmail $40/year for this, but that's not really the hacker news spirit, and no one on this site knows how to count as low as $40. The real justifications you can give yourself: Shared VPS hosting pretty much all bans email, AWS, DO, etc all have ToS that say "no email" as anti-spam measures. Shared IP space will go straight to spam due to people having spammed on it in the past. Buy a /24 to ensure you don't go straight to spam. Rackspace ensures you actually own your email, at least moreso than with other shared hosting, and owning your email is important.
  - 2Gkashmiri 2y ago
    been using racknerd.com vps for last 3 years for running miab. ZERO problems so far. costs around $12/year+domain
  - account42 2y ago
    > Shared VPS hosting pretty much all bans email, AWS, DO, etc all have ToS that say "no email" as anti-spam measures. Complete FUD. Here is DO's acceptable use policy: https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy You can see that they explicitly have policies for email hosts. Here is a guide they host on how to setup a mail server: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-run-your-own-mail-server-with-mail-in-a-box-on-ubuntu-14-04 https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-run-... They forbid spamming, not all mail. > Shared IP space will go straight to spam due to people having spammed on it in the past. Buy a /24 to ensure you don't go straight to spam. I have had no problems with deliverability to Google from an IP on a shared block. I don't send marketing mails or any other kind of spam though. Microsoft blocks my IP but they are too small (outside businesses) for me to care to give them special snowflake treatment. Deliverability of your own mails is also irrelevant for the original discussion about using unique email addresses for signing up to services - you don't need to be able to send at all for that.

beAbU 2y ago

1/ Buy a domain of your choice 2/ Register an account on Migadu.com and pay them $20/year 3/ Configure your domain nameserver with the settings provided by Migadu 4/ Done.

JCharante 2y ago

I have an even easier approach: - have an iphone/mac w/ icloud+ - go into settings - add custom email - get redirected to login to cloudflare - buy/pick a domain for $12 - icloud+ automatically sets up the MX records on the domain via cloudflare - enable catch-all emails in icloud settings - Done! Takes about 10 minutes & icloud provides the email hosting without any additional fees

meindnoch 2y ago

1. Register domain on Cloudflare 2. Configure a catch-all forwarding address to your private GMail Done.

useless_foghorn 2y ago

I use Bitwarden coupled with AnonAddy (0) for simple and free on demand email alias generation. 0. https://bitwarden.com/help/generator/#username-types https://bitwarden.com/help/generator/#username-types

buildsjets 2y ago

LtdJorge 2y ago

Purelymail allows it