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Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

zdnet.com

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Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#51

Post by lucb1e »

Already__Taken wrote: post #18
beagle3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not going to help, since everybody knows you can just strip everything after the '+' and get to the main mailbox.

Jokes on them, if my spam+ doesn't have a tag it's straight in the bin.

It's always a cat and mouse game, user+$RANDOM@example.org would still get through and you'd not be able to block that based on the sender (assuming you do it like most people, blacklist-based, rather than allocating new email addresses when you need them).

Of course, this only becomes an issue when the masses start doing it. I'm very surprised how few spammers remove tge +tag, given that that's semi-mainstream by now.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#52

Post by [deleted] »

amf12 wrote: post #39
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #12

Now if only websites will stop rejecting plus-addressed email addresses as invalid. The most frequent offenders are mom & pop websites that you just _know_ are going to get breached.

You can also use this with a "." (email.spam@gmail.com) in Gmail.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#53

Post by EvanAnderson »

simpss wrote: post #47
giomasce wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I have my own domain, I receive all emails addressed at whatever@domain.com. Of course, different values of "whatever" end up in different directories, and should one of those display an insufficient SNR, it would go straight to /dev/null. This way the "proper" address, i.e., the one that goes to the actual inbox, is not easy to extract. The hard part is social acceptance. This morning the Whirpool technician w…

The social acceptance part is truly hard. I recently received a BS trademark cease & desist because i was using the company name in the e-mail address I provided them & was using to communicate with them. Personally, i've just replaced the recipient_delimiter default value(+) with "." as that is basically impossible to strip out. Ex, firstname.COMPANY@example.net I do get a lot of weird looks when handing the address…

I use the "companyname" part of "companyname@mydomain.tld" to express (often very profane) editorial views about the company when their site won't let me sign-up with "companyname@mydomain.tdl". I'm sure nobody ever sees it, but it makes me feel better.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#54

Post by Namidairo »

LandR wrote: post #42
amf12 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also use this with a "." (email.spam@gmail.com) in Gmail.

This doesn't work for me bar.foo@gmail.com gets rejected as email address doesn't exist when my gmail is bar@gmail.com

That's because the email in fact went to barfoo@gmail.com, not bar@gmail.com

So if you wanted to use it like this you would try something like b.ar@gmail.com

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#56

Post by snielson »

cm2187 wrote: post #40

It reminds me a gag from the last season of What we do in the shadow. A character puts a toothpick on his lip and suddenly none of the other characters recognise him. Like if spammers and hackers were not aware of the + notation, and like if it wasn’t trivial to extract the underlying email address by removing anything after the +... Unless you have an alias that completely obfuscate the underlying email, I just don’…

I use these all the time with my outlook.com account (and Gmail before that). You are right that they don't help with spam. However, they add an extra layer of security because now my logins have both a unique email address and password. Of course, a password manager is mandatory.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#57

Post by jacobr1 »

amf12 wrote: post #39
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #12

Now if only websites will stop rejecting plus-addressed email addresses as invalid. The most frequent offenders are mom & pop websites that you just _know_ are going to get breached.

You can also use this with a "." (email.spam@gmail.com) in Gmail.

Gmail lets you add "." in arbitrary places, but not to append additional text.

For example: foobar@ foo.bar@ f.o.o.b.a.r@ are all valid and normalize the case without the periods.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#58

Post by ascagnel_ »

amf12 wrote: post #39
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #12

Now if only websites will stop rejecting plus-addressed email addresses as invalid. The most frequent offenders are mom & pop websites that you just _know_ are going to get breached.

You can also use this with a "." (email.spam@gmail.com) in Gmail.

Periods are handled slightly differently than "+" characters in Gmail -- periods are ignored (so an email to email.spam@gmail would be delivered to emailspam@gmail.com), while everything following a + would be delivered (so email+spam@gmail.com will be delivered to email@gmail.com).

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#59

Post by inanutshellus »

The process for sending email /from/ a + address is tricky.

First -- in GMail at least -- you have to explicitly set up a + account as being in your list of "from" accounts and then you have to remember to use it every time you reply!

Not to mention forgetting the email I gave them when resetting passwords sucks, too. "Was that foo+hn or foo+ycombinator or foo+ycombinator.com or foo+hackernews or... hm... uhhh..." (You need a centralized password manager, in other words.)

I've had several issues where I've replied and sending from the base-address means the conversation goes awry ("We don't recognize this email address"), or at best I still expose the base address because I only remember to reply using the laboriously-created-from-plus address about a fourth of the time.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#60

Post by inetknght »

OliverJones wrote: post #46
throw0101a wrote: post #10

Finally. This has only been allowed since RFC 822 (1982). Is there any reason why Microsoft did not support this from the beginning (of Exchange)?

1982? Back then Microsoft's attitude toward the Internet was "embrace, extend, and suffocate." It made little sense for them to work with the nuances of standards, according their business model back then. I have added this capability to every commercial web property I've worked on.

> Back then Microsoft's attitude toward the Internet was "embrace, extend, and suffocate."

I'm pretty sure that's close to Microsoft's current attitude towards the Internet.

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