Why is it required to enable notifications from the nbox site in order to generate an address?
Hi cdubzzz, no it's not required.
Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
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Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#12So how is this different from something like Mailinator.com? In my opinion, I can't see a use case in which I'd care enough to have my temporary email private. If I cared enough I'd just use my real email.
If I had to guess, requiring that each email address be tied to an individual person would allow NBox to stay off "temporary email address" blacklists. It's a privacy service essentially, not an anonymity service. Same reason why credit card masking services are legal, but Visa/MC/etc wouldn't allow a mass-shared CC number.
Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#13How does it work? I mean how does it generate addresses that aren't blocked by the a services (like mailinator and similar throwaway email sites)? Does it use thousands of random domains?
Hi alkonaut, the domain is unique at the moment.
Some services might block our addresses some day, but that would be a mistake because nBox is not a disposable email service.
Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#14As an alternative, you could register a domain with a catch-all email address and simply register for new services on the fly using a unique string for each site. Have the catch-all forward to your main email account. For example, I would sign-up for HN using hackernews@marak.com and for Reddit using reddit@marak.com Simple and effective.
Yep. I do this and route my email through mailgun that allows me to setup rules for forwarding emails. Their free tier is pretty generous and works great for my needs. Also solves the problem of shoddy websites selling my email because I gave them an unique email address and can block all emails coming to that address easily, if needed.
Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#15So how is this different from something like Mailinator.com? In my opinion, I can't see a use case in which I'd care enough to have my temporary email private. If I cared enough I'd just use my real email.
Hi jswny, jacobwg is right, the addresses are private (and anonymous because we don't ask any information).
I'd say the use case is to filter "semi-wanted" emails.
Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#16As an alternative, you could register a domain with a catch-all email address and simply register for new services on the fly using a unique string for each site. Have the catch-all forward to your main email account. For example, I would sign-up for HN using hackernews@marak.com and for Reddit using reddit@marak.com Simple and effective.
Hi Marak, you're right, this is an alternative.
You'd have to implement the filtering of the addresses you don't want any more though.
Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#17As an alternative, you could register a domain with a catch-all email address and simply register for new services on the fly using a unique string for each site. Have the catch-all forward to your main email account. For example, I would sign-up for HN using hackernews@marak.com and for Reddit using reddit@marak.com Simple and effective.
If you do this, make sure you lock down your account at your domain registrar. A socially engineered DNS hijack could be all it takes to obtain full read/write access to your email.
Can you elaborate on the steps needed to ensure your security in this case?
Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#18Why is it required to enable notifications from the nbox site in order to generate an address?
Hi cdubzzz, no it's not required.
Here is what I see after I click "GENERATE AN ADDRESS" > "Generate an address for any other reason": http://imgur.com/ktTssbB
If I click "Not Now", the prompt goes away and nothing happens. Perhaps I am misunderstanding how the service works?
Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#19I am trying to understand this. Appears to offer bulk accounts that are easy to create and permanent, targeting the market that sits between a) regular email addresses, which are permanent but a pain to sign up for, needing phone verification, etc. and b) throwaway accounts that are easy to create but cannot be kept long-term.
This seems like an interesting idea if they own a whole bunch of different domains, but they don't specify this, and my attempt to sign up for an address failed. (open firefox -> click create my nBox -> click Sign up for a service (i type https://facebook.com) -> receive message saying "To create your nBox Allow the notifications" -> No simple info about how to do this is given, so I give up)
Re: Show HN: NBox – Sign up anywhere without giving your email address
#20A link to the chrome extension on the landing page would be quite useful (Otherwise visitors need to go to the chrome web store and search for it...and some of them are too lazy to do it). But otherwise I really like the idea. I'll give it a try ;)
P.S. here's the link for the extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nbox-your-registra...