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This article brings up a question about protecting email addresses that I'm hoping a HN reader can answer. I have a unique email address for PayPal--different
by cantrevealname 12y ago
This article brings up a question about protecting email addresses that I'm hoping a HN reader can answer.
I have a unique email address for PayPal--different from my normal email address--that I want to keep secret. The problem is that every time I make a purchase, the merchant gets this email address (in addition to the normal email address I gave to the merchant). I know that merchants get it because I get junk mail at my secret PayPal address from merchants I did business with.
Is there no way to make a PayPal payment without PayPal handing my email address over to the merchant?
As a related question, why do I have to trust the merchant to redirect me to PayPal's website to make the payment? There are many ways I can get fooled into entering my PayPal password directly into merchant's website (for example, the merchant opens the PayPal site in a frame or pop-up, so you can't verify that it's really PayPal). Isn't there a way I can open my own browser window, login to PayPal, and give some sort of invoice number to PayPal to direct payment to the merchant?
- minopret 12y agoInteresting question. I have no idea. I suggest you shop it around as a new "Ask HN" question and as a question on security.stackexchange.com.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago>(for example, the merchant opens the PayPal site in a frame or pop-up, so you can't verify that it's really PayPal) // You can right-click the page in Firefox and choose "view page info", then on the security tab you can see if it's paypal, see the certificate, etc.. Someone could hijack right-click, it's going to be a bit of effort though. I think in FF shift+rightMouseClick overrides normal right-click to give you the browser menu, but probably that's capturable by the site too. Ctrl+I is the shortcut, but I don't think it handles frames.