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Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

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Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#221

Post by sleepybrett »

I got a bunch of mortgage documentation for another person with my name (i assume they either are a 1-t brett (or a misheard brent, brad or brit) or their email contains their middle initial or someone misheard their last name over the phone ( there are several spellings for my last name that are more or less homophones ).. either way I now have enough information to easily steal their identity.

I feel like most, majorish, online services do email verification, but when you are giving your email address to a someone over the phone, that's where most of the problems start.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#222

Post by FabHK »

blindm wrote: post #115

I love the way most services treat dotted addresses as separate addresses. So for example if you wanted multiple accounts on $service you could register the following: john.doe@gmail.com j.ohndoe@gmail.com jo.hndoe@gmail.com joh.ndoe@gmail.com johnd.oe@gmail.com johndo.e@gmail.com And now you have six accounts, with the bonus of receiving mail in the same inbox for each account!

well, using the dot between any two letters or not, you have 2^6 = 64 combinations (without even using double or triple dots...)

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#223

Post by bstrong »

paxys wrote: post #216

Everyone in this thread is replying with instances of receiving emails meant for other people, but dots have nothing to do with that. It's people typing in the wrong email address in a signup page (with dots or without), and the service not verifying it. The latter is what really needs to be fixed. I personally find this Gmail feature (as well as the ability to append +anything to your email address) extremely useful…

In my experience, it's mostly the situations where people give their emails in person that are a problem: Receipts from in-store purchases (and in-store credit card signups), hotel reservations and rewards programs, EMR signups, lawyers offices, banks, realtors, etc.

Websites are pretty good at verifying email addresses these days. The real world, not so much. The super funny part is when you try to ask the bank/doctor/etc. to stop sending someone else's personal info to your email address, and they tell you they can't make that change since you aren't the account owner.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#224

Post by rsync »

sriku wrote: post #150

Not only do dots not matter, you can suffix "+ " to your user name before the "@gmail.com" and it will still come to your email address. I actually love this "+" feature and use it a lot .. like send an email to "+bookmark@gmail.com" to bookmark a link, or register with "+nospam" and setup a filter for that address if anyone sends me email on that. This is supported by icloud and fastmail too.

"This is supported by icloud and fastmail too."

No, this is neither supported nor not supported by any email provider - it is part of the email specification. It works that way with all email systems, unless they are non-RFC compliant.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#225

Post by dtparr »

treeman79 wrote: post #211
boring_twenties wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about this but wouldn't that be a felony?

Yes. 99.9% chance no one would care. But people do freak out over this stuff. Knew one guy that saw that a Bank got hacked on the news. Did an nslookup or similar to check the banks site. He was arrested the next day and expelled from college for hacking the bank. Eventually all got cleared up, but screwed up a year of his life

He got expelled for running a DNS query?

Do you mean nmap?

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#226

Post by liquidgecka »

adenner wrote: post #173
liquidgecka wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been there. I posted about this before but I own a 5 character common first and last name @gmail.com address. I get misdirected emails _constantly_. Usually I am polite about it and let people know, but sometimes I make a game of it. I was invited to participate in a drum circle with an offer to pay for my flight to which I replied that I would love to join, but they would also have to pay for drum lessons. I got a m…

As the lucky early adopter of gmail I got my last name only @gmail.com. It has been a blessing and a curse. I have a boilerplate "you have the wrong address" email in multiple languages that I use to reply to the first email from real people. If they persist they then get added to my auto-reply "you have the wrong address" and delete rule. For automated emails, I don't even bother trying to unsubscribe. They all get…

Ohh yea I forgot that I got mailed a bunch of movie pass financial details while they were still a hot property! That was.. erm.. eye opening.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#228

Post by ovulator »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #51
RandomBacon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine then you've probably gotten receipts/confirmations with the person's phone number. Have you tried calling him and letting him know?

You'd think so, but nope! In addition to the fact that about half the emails are in Spanish (my doppelganger appears to be a Central American doctor?), all of them seem to contain the bare minimum of info that would allow me to actually contact the person in question. And, ya know, you'd think a hotel or a financial institution that is notified they have someone other than the actual customer's email on file would be…

Have you tried emailing them? You have their email address apparently ;)

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#229

Post by crftr »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #218
robbyking wrote: post #172

A coworker of mine got an email once containing important scholarship information intended for a high school kid in Florida. He did a little looking online and found the kid's and his parent's actual email addresses and forwarded the email to them. So here's where it gets weird/dumb: the kid replies to my friend and his parents and says, "hey mom, you put the wrong email address on my application, there's no dot in m…

I have a common last name and my email is my first initial and my last name. I get so much misdirected mail that I don’t even try to help these people. I hope John gets to his zoom interview for Deputy Chief of Police later today, because I’m not going to tell him about it.

I'm in a similar situation. I was lucky enough to claim my Gmail address during the beta.

For the first few years I tried to be kind and alert the sender, but it just became impractical to do so.

It breaks my heart when I see my name twin receiving state benefit notifications or HR notices at the wrong address. He's currently applying for quite a few electrician openings. Good luck, my man.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#230

Post by _kst_ »

I have a similar issue, though it's not related to Gmail.

I registered an obvious joke email address from a free service. I'm not going to type it here, but imagine something similar to "fakeaddress@example.com". (I could have used a gmail address for the same purpose.)

Occasionally someone will fill out an online form that asks for an email address, and decide to use an obvious fake, assuming that any emails will go into the proverbial bit bucket. That's why I sometimes get emails about someone's health insurance or airline tickets.

It can get a bit frustrating when online support forms insist on asking for account information when the whole point is that I don't have an account.

(Yes, I know I set myself up for this.)

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