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Check If Email Exists

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Re: Check If Email Exists

#141

Post by tdeck »

Cyberdog wrote: post #8

Could someone spell out a use case for this? One that comes to mind would be validating that a mailing list doesn't have any outdated email addresses in it, but couldn't that be determined by just checking for a bounce when a message is sent to it? I tried to sign up for SiriusXM the other day, and though I could create an account with my .pro email address, I couldn't actually sign up for service with that same addr…

I maintain a small fee tool for creating API endpoints to trigger email alerts for yourself (varmail.me). Since it's very basic and has no marketing, it doesn't get too many users. You have to click a link in an email to even log in, but I still get bots stuffing my login form with known bad email addresses (I've googled and some of them appear in honeypot lists). There is no chance they can get in, but this is bad because my login verification emails look like spam, since a large percentage of them are sent in response to these bots. So I definitely see some value in a way to pre-screen the emails there.

Re: Check If Email Exists

#142

Post by miyuru »

Cyberdog wrote: post #8

Could someone spell out a use case for this? One that comes to mind would be validating that a mailing list doesn't have any outdated email addresses in it, but couldn't that be determined by just checking for a bounce when a message is sent to it? I tried to sign up for SiriusXM the other day, and though I could create an account with my .pro email address, I couldn't actually sign up for service with that same addr…

For email confirmation.

The practice of email confirmation is still widely used, but the change in email deliverable rules has make it a pain to properly validate them.

Even if you are using a 3rd party provider like SES or mailgun, they have a email bounce limit. A considerable number of real world users give fake email address(which is even sometimes encouraged on HN) which triggers those bounce limits.

To fix it, there are paid services but they does not work very well. Fixing it yourself take a lot of engineering time, that is better spent elsewhere.

Providing an open solution to this problem (which is given in the github repo) is a double edge sword. As this gives a edge to spammers who created the problem in the first place.

Re: Check If Email Exists

#143

Post by lights0123 »

saagarjha wrote: post #138
mdasen wrote: post #136

On your site ( https://reacher.email ) it shows "Open-Source" next to the MIT logo. To any reasonable person, that means "it's licensed under the MIT license". Instead, it's licensed under the AGPL. It would be good if you changed it to remove the implication that it was MIT licensed.

Uh, what? "Open source" doesn't mean "MIT" any more than "vehicle" means "truck"…

> next to the MIT logo

Re: Check If Email Exists

#145

Post by yread »

Cyberdog wrote: post #8

Could someone spell out a use case for this? One that comes to mind would be validating that a mailing list doesn't have any outdated email addresses in it, but couldn't that be determined by just checking for a bounce when a message is sent to it? I tried to sign up for SiriusXM the other day, and though I could create an account with my .pro email address, I couldn't actually sign up for service with that same addr…

If you use Amazon SES and have a high bounce rate they will just block you. So, Eve could flood your registration with invalid emails that would cause bounces, that would stop all your emails from getting delivered. A DoS you can only recover from by switching to a different email provider

Re: Check If Email Exists

#146

Post by blackearl »

SilverRed wrote: post #61
blackearl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I specifically bought a cheap .org since some companies have trouble with lesser known TLDs

I have a .red and a .me and I have never not been able to sign up.

pipesandcigars.com let me sign up with a .miami but now I can't login because it says it's invalid. My ISP frantically called me up after starting service because they took all my info down and then the system didn't like the domain. My utility company kept sending me requests to go paperless and I had to call them to get an answer on why that happened since I had accepted the paperless prompt, the issue was the domain.

It's nice to have but I've had quite a few headaches with it

Re: Check If Email Exists

#147

Post by xdrosenheim »

vxNsr wrote: post #128
user3939382 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been doing the same thing for years and haven’t had any trouble except for Mailchimp. Their overly-clever validation decided mailchimp@example.com is a shared email account (it wasn’t going to be) and blocked me from using it. Their email support apologized but said they couldn’t fix the false positive, and that they hoped the email I used instead wasn’t reflective of my opinion: mailchimp-morons@example.com.

Do you have a personal set up for managing these emails and disabling the bad ones? or are you using something like 33mail? Just curious.

I do the same thing, I catch every mail my domain receives and send it to a catch-all inbox. When ever an e-mail is "compromised" or is being abused, I can just forward @ to null space.

Re: Check If Email Exists

#148

Post by neeleshs »

nextaccountic wrote: post #124
neeleshs wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to be in the same camp, before starting my own company. While the border is thin, it is clear, and there is a difference between marketing and spam.

I think you proved the point: when the spammer send spam they think they are doing marketing.

If that was the case, all newsletter senders in the world are spammers too. And all spammers thinking they are marketers is not logically equivalent to all marketing is spamming

Re: Check If Email Exists

#149

Post by defanor »

Checked out of curiosity: it tries to confirm email existence by initiating mail sending [1] (likely very unreliably, since basic anti-spam measures would reject it before checking whether an address exists), and while it lists existence of paid services as the motivation, those paid services also mention unreliability and don't mention their motivation.

Now I'm slightly worried that in addition to counting me as a robot and an attacker, online services will think that my email address does not exist.

[1] https://help.reacher.email/faq

Re: Check If Email Exists

#150

Post by transitivebs »

mdasen wrote: post #136

On your site ( https://reacher.email ) it shows "Open-Source" next to the MIT logo. To any reasonable person, that means "it's licensed under the MIT license". Instead, it's licensed under the AGPL. It would be good if you changed it to remove the implication that it was MIT licensed.

Good catch; the author (amaury) is using my service Saasify (https://saasify.sh) to auto-generate the entire SaaS website so this was just an oversight.
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