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Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

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Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#61
post #4

What about + signs? That's the trick I use.

In theory, providers/servers should ignore everything from the + to the @ so that should work just about everywhere else. And since most forms don't filter that out, you can make numerous "unique" addresses connected to a single one. Now odds are, someone is going to respond with the one service where the + becomes significant..

Been using this for a while -

https://github.com/johno/normalize-email

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#62

That, and '@googlemail.com'. example@gmail.com is equivalent to example@googlemail.com.

@googlemail.com was the default address for a few years in the UK because of a legal dispute. If you sent an email it'd always come from the longer domain.

For reference: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2005/oct/19/news.busi...

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#63
post #58

I spent far too much of my time trying to explain this to Humanity.com’s support after someone created an account using a dotless variant of my email. I didn’t want to freeze the guy out of his account as I imagine he was using it for shift work notifications but in the end they just told me to change the password. Their support repeatedly insisted that gmail was broken and I should contact Google.

I don't understand your problem. So Humanity.com made two accounts which both sent mail to the same gmail account, right? In that case it is easy to ignore or mark as spam or go to forget password and close the second account.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#64
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't. You get email because somebody either typo's their similar address or they simply think that's their address when it isn't.

Not sure, I contacted this person, since I got their phone number from one of their emails (e.g. they registered for a hotel). I specifically asked them if they made a typo, according to them they have been using this email for years (maybe they lied but why would they).

This is inconclusive test, and if you ask people whether they made a mistake in the signup, they will likely answer no. Try to send a mail to that account, and if you receive a reply that is a real test.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#65
post #54

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

Same exact issue. Especially with people from Africa for some reason. I get a lot of stuff from 3 people from Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Most everything there is managed by phone, and they just use my email as a throw-away address. The guy in South Africa has a collections agency after him. The guy in Kenya likes to order food delivery quite a bit. I occasionally change his order to extra spicy. The guy in Zi…

I don't receive any junk mails anymore after switching to my custom domain.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#66

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

My gmail address is simply my lastname @ gmail.com

So I get a lot of emails meant for other people whose email is firstname.mylastname@gmail.com where some sender drops the firstname and the dot for some reason.

I received airline reservations (where I can click and change seat assignments!), cancer diagnoses(!), wedding invitations, bank statements, real estate documents to verisign, all sorts of things.

I've been tempted to do things like switch the person's seat to a middle in the back by the bathroom, but while I've clicked through to see if I _could_ do it, I never actually completed it. I did once send my regrets to a wedding invitation.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#67
post #54

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

Same exact issue. Especially with people from Africa for some reason. I get a lot of stuff from 3 people from Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Most everything there is managed by phone, and they just use my email as a throw-away address. The guy in South Africa has a collections agency after him. The guy in Kenya likes to order food delivery quite a bit. I occasionally change his order to extra spicy. The guy in Zi…

> The guy in Kenya likes to order food delivery quite a bit. I occasionally change his order to extra spicy.

> The guy in Zimbabwe works for a college of some sort. I make sure he's signed up for all the educational trips to Europe.

Both made me laugh, you are a wild man!

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#68
post #28

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

Reset their account passwords.

I’d rather not commit a federal computer crime thanks

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#69

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

You can filter your gmail based on the TO field (so anything without the dot goes to spam) if you like. I've done the same thing myself intentionally: I give the dot-less version to sites/companies where I need to receive an email or two (account confirmation etc). Then I manually grab them from spam and then forget the whole thing knowing I'll never see the other crap they send me. Hope that helps, as someone with a…

I've done this — I have a filter to move any email I receive without a dot into a "Not For Me" folder, which I periodically go through and usually send a canned response back about how they probably have the wrong person.

You can also automate this part, perhaps to reply with "You probably have the wrong person, but if it is actually for me I'll get back to you shortly".

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#70

This is indeed the case. I have checked it myself. The link below shows how this can be used maliciously. https://jameshfisher.com/2018/04/07/the-dots-do-matter-how-t... I do not know if this has been mitigated.

James is wrong, this is Netflix's fault. The same "scam" would work under a variety of circumstances because Netflix relies on something it has no reason to believe is true. Maybe you signed up to Netflix but your house mate thinks she did, she gets an email because of Eve, now you're both paying for Netflix, but actually she's paying for Eve's account. Netflix could make this mistake with postal addresses even, if f…

This is actually Google's fault. Because Google is large enough Netflix could be nice and have special handling for Gmail addresses but this would be going against the email RFC that says $inbox1+$subaddr@domain == $inbox2+$subaddr@domain iff $inbox1 and $inbox2 are identical.

Netflix has zero idea how any particular email operator mangles or maps inboxes to actual users. Apple's private email service maps all sorts of inboxes to the same actual person. Mailinator maps every address to everyone.

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