4 ms·

Show HN: Hidnchat - Send anonymous mails, receive replies

7 points by shibendu 12y ago

pezh0re 12y ago
Is it only for one exchange (e.g. message sent and reply)? Also, the background was a bit distracting - but it's an interesting concept.
- shibendu 12y ago
  Yes. right now its for one pair of exchange. but will soon be extended to instant messaging. Thank for commenting.
thanesh 12y ago
I have been a follower of justleak.it. Would you run into the same issues as them?
- shibendu 12y ago
  No. we have our own mail server setup. we are not dependent on any third party services. so will never run into same issues. thanks for commenting.
  - thanesh 12y ago
    I checked with gmail. Initial email is getting caught by spam filters. Nice site, good luck with this.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    Your delivery address seems to indicate otherwise: mail comes from "<blah>.members.linode.com" which appears to be a cloud hosting service. That would seem to fit the definition of reliance on a third-party service (unless you own and operate linode.com). A problem you may run into, if your system takes off and attracts many users, is abuses which result in you being black-listed by anti-spam databases like SORBS, SpamCop and Barracuda. I suspect it will be hard to get de-listed, based on the service that you operate. Since black-listing is by raw IP address, you might make your hosting provider upset. Suppose linode.com dynamically reshuffles a pool of IP addresses among users. You could get some IP addresses black-listed, and then those IP addresses could be cycled to another user under members.linode.com, who then has a hard time sending mail because of you. Just a thought.
    - shibendu 12y ago
      I meant to say that I am not using any third party mail service api for sending mails. and yes you are right that I am hosting it in linode which is a cloud hosting service provider. But I have tried to put multiple filters inbuilt into this service to make sure that chances of arising above mentioned situation is low.
artsandsci 12y ago
Is there a reason you called the email field "Email Id" instead of "Email address"? Also, people read pages from left to right. So a first-time visitor would see the "Check reply" section first, which is useless for all first-time visitors. Did you consider swapping the left and right columns?
- shibendu 12y ago
  Thanks for this reply. will soon change it.
  - artsandsci 12y ago
    My test went into spam as well. As others have said, though, interesting concept.
kazinator 12y ago
This kind of thing is an incredibly bad idea. There is not even a captcha to reduce abuse by spammers; just punch in an e-mail address, and click "Send", wee! I sent myself an e-mail, viewed it raw, and promptly updated my mail server configuration to drop SMTP connections from that same sender/host. And say someone uses this for mailing an anonymous threat (bomb, death, ...); why would you want to expose yourself to any such trouble.
- shibendu 12y ago
  will soon add captha. Thanks for this great advice.
- thanesh 12y ago
  Come on this is just an idea. spam and legal stuff later.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    An idea it is, but not an original idea. By the time you properly deal with the spam and legal stuff, you're on your way to cloning Hotmail. (Gmail, if you do a better job of it.) What, those are not anonymous, you say? Yes they are, to a degree; anyone can make "fake" throwaway addresses with the free online mail services. The inconvenience of having to register (as opposed to just filling in a form and clicking Send) reduces abuse. These services also don't promise anonymity to anyone; do something illegal an they will reveal to the authorities your IP address and all access logs pertaining to it. (Are these hidnchat guys willing to provide anonymity assurances greater than that?)
  - marvy 12y ago
    Normally, I would agree with you. But let me tell you how I found out about this service. It was not through HN. It was by getting two emails from hidnchat. Five minutes apart. Emails that I am quite confident are not legit. (If you think I'm wrong, then I can post my reasons for saying they are spam.) And since the mail headers look much more legit than what a typical spammer sends, my spam filter did not even catch it. I googled hidnchat and found this HN thread.

7 points by shibendu 12y ago

Is it only for one exchange (e.g. message sent and reply)? Also, the background was a bit distracting - but it's an interesting concept.

shibendu 12y ago
Yes. right now its for one pair of exchange. but will soon be extended to instant messaging. Thank for commenting.

thanesh 12y ago

I have been a follower of justleak.it. Would you run into the same issues as them?

shibendu 12y ago
No. we have our own mail server setup. we are not dependent on any third party services. so will never run into same issues. thanks for commenting.
- thanesh 12y ago
  I checked with gmail. Initial email is getting caught by spam filters. Nice site, good luck with this.
- kazinator 12y ago
  Your delivery address seems to indicate otherwise: mail comes from "<blah>.members.linode.com" which appears to be a cloud hosting service. That would seem to fit the definition of reliance on a third-party service (unless you own and operate linode.com). A problem you may run into, if your system takes off and attracts many users, is abuses which result in you being black-listed by anti-spam databases like SORBS, SpamCop and Barracuda. I suspect it will be hard to get de-listed, based on the service that you operate. Since black-listing is by raw IP address, you might make your hosting provider upset. Suppose linode.com dynamically reshuffles a pool of IP addresses among users. You could get some IP addresses black-listed, and then those IP addresses could be cycled to another user under members.linode.com, who then has a hard time sending mail because of you. Just a thought.
  - shibendu 12y ago
    I meant to say that I am not using any third party mail service api for sending mails. and yes you are right that I am hosting it in linode which is a cloud hosting service provider. But I have tried to put multiple filters inbuilt into this service to make sure that chances of arising above mentioned situation is low.

artsandsci 12y ago

Is there a reason you called the email field "Email Id" instead of "Email address"? Also, people read pages from left to right. So a first-time visitor would see the "Check reply" section first, which is useless for all first-time visitors. Did you consider swapping the left and right columns?

shibendu 12y ago
Thanks for this reply. will soon change it.
- artsandsci 12y ago
  My test went into spam as well. As others have said, though, interesting concept.

kazinator 12y ago

This kind of thing is an incredibly bad idea. There is not even a captcha to reduce abuse by spammers; just punch in an e-mail address, and click "Send", wee! I sent myself an e-mail, viewed it raw, and promptly updated my mail server configuration to drop SMTP connections from that same sender/host. And say someone uses this for mailing an anonymous threat (bomb, death, ...); why would you want to expose yourself to any such trouble.

shibendu 12y ago
will soon add captha. Thanks for this great advice.
thanesh 12y ago
Come on this is just an idea. spam and legal stuff later.
- kazinator 12y ago
  An idea it is, but not an original idea. By the time you properly deal with the spam and legal stuff, you're on your way to cloning Hotmail. (Gmail, if you do a better job of it.) What, those are not anonymous, you say? Yes they are, to a degree; anyone can make "fake" throwaway addresses with the free online mail services. The inconvenience of having to register (as opposed to just filling in a form and clicking Send) reduces abuse. These services also don't promise anonymity to anyone; do something illegal an they will reveal to the authorities your IP address and all access logs pertaining to it. (Are these hidnchat guys willing to provide anonymity assurances greater than that?)
- marvy 12y ago
  Normally, I would agree with you. But let me tell you how I found out about this service. It was not through HN. It was by getting two emails from hidnchat. Five minutes apart. Emails that I am quite confident are not legit. (If you think I'm wrong, then I can post my reasons for saying they are spam.) And since the mail headers look much more legit than what a typical spammer sends, my spam filter did not even catch it. I googled hidnchat and found this HN thread.