I do not regularly track, but I do reflexively create throwaway emails at a domain I bought for that purpose, so that I can /dev/null them if/when someone sells that email address to a list.
Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
41–50 of 102 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#42Occasional use of plus addressing but I find a lot of signup forms now actively block this. Also have a secondary crappy gmail address that I use for low value stuff that is sus. (That’s full of spam and has multiple hits on have I been pwned) Beyond that I don’t worry about this too much. As a side note - amazed that iPhone autocorrect corrected my “owned” to pwned in above
while they might block the plus, they likely do not block the dot. It's not exactly the same but can help for at least a few scenarios.
Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#43I use canaries. I point a dozen domains to fastmail and another dozen to my self hosted email servers. Each have aliases that are mapped to vendors but do not have the vendor name as some vendors are getting upset at this practice and calling it fraud . If I start getting garbage on that alias, I notify the vendor. In most cases they will give me a boiler plate response and then I delete the alias. If they are snarky…
woah, what do you mean by calling it fraud? Have you actually had companies come after you legally due to an email alias?
I'm not GP, but I've had transitions denied while attempting to purchase something because the retailer's code flagged my email address as suspicious because it contained their name in it.
Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#44I run my own IT. I host my own email, authoritative DNS, web, etc. I use wireguard for a lot of stuff. I put stuff behind cloudflare. I'm sneaky when I need to be, but mostly I'm just a control freak. I also know way more than the average person about email and email authentication. Or lack thereof. Every entity gets it's own email address. As others have pointed out, it lets me track who ends up with it. Sometimes I…
Hi, Can you guide on how to do a similar setup.I would love if you could possbily share any relveant resources.
Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#45I care. I use a generated email address at my domain for every account/service/website. I store the account info in keepass, they all have generated passwords too. I can see when email comes in who abused the email, was compromised, or sold it. If an email starts getting spam, i block receiving to that address. if desired, I update the account to have another generated email, but usually if I'm getting spam to that e…
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Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#46I've used spamgourmet.com for many years (Literally decades, my first entry was 2003-08-07) to create disposable email address. You just make up the address "tempsite.4.username@spamgourmet.com" to create an email address for tempsite that expires after 4 uses. You can always remove this limit later.
My message stats: You have 245 spamgourmet address(es). 827 emails forwarded, 28,605 eaten.
The #1 worst offender for selling my address was Yahoo, followed by the German magazine Der Spiegel, then Groupon. But my stats go back 20 years, so this may not represent current sharing activity. I also have many many examples of registering at all kinds of sketchy websites that have never used that temp address beyond the initial registration confirmation..
Sorting by created date, in the most recent 5 years, my temp addresses seem to be getting shared and re-used considerably less frequently, which probably correlates to the overall death of email, which is for old people, so I am told.
Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#47I care. I use a generated email address at my domain for every account/service/website. I store the account info in keepass, they all have generated passwords too. I can see when email comes in who abused the email, was compromised, or sold it. If an email starts getting spam, i block receiving to that address. if desired, I update the account to have another generated email, but usually if I'm getting spam to that e…
I generate a "username" on Bitwarden for every new address I need which is effectively the same approach (using my domain). Do you mean though that you generate an email address with your mail server, or do you just use a catch-all? I do the latter and I've never considered "turning off" an address before and now I wonder if I have that option.
Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#48Yes. I use a catch-all. I can accept (whatever)@mydomain.tld Anytime a new company wants my email address, I just randomly give them one. So far I only get spam to the email addresses other people posted on a website as contacts for organizations I volunteer with. (I get spam from web scraping, not from company hacks/sharing etc.)
JW, why? Do you get so much spam from a specific email that you feel safe to ban it completely? Are you able to sue them or just send a strongly worded email about how they sold your email?
Honestly, using a username generator in Bitwarden, it's so easy to do this that it basically "pays" for itself the first time you get a "true" spam email and it's effortless to identify who sold you out. I originally tried doing this manually but that was too much effort; now it's as simple and natural as generating a password for a new login. I see no reason to ever stop.
Of course, the vast majority of spam I get is marketing emails from companies I've actually done business with. Few if any even have an opt-in checkbox on their checkout form and those that do hardly ever honor it. There's simply nothing to be done about that except unsubscribe after the first time they spam you - and this is where having unique emails also helps, because those "unsubscribe" links are obviously riddled with tracking as well.
Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#49Use unique plus addresses for each service that requests email address.
Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?
#50My friend Ward was doing sub-addressing back in the 1970s, with made up apartment/box numbers, and eventually the xmodem.com domain. He learned quite a few things about it.
For instance, if you look at the article he wrote about CBBS[1], you'll see he's listed at apartment #3D.
I never took up the practice, though I suppose I could having the warot.com domain to play with, and a single family residence to make up PO boxes, apartments, etc.
[1] https://vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/byte%20nov%201978%20comp...