Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

developer.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 216 posts

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#141

Post by leshenka »

_ks3e wrote: post #60
ninkendo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

private.icloud.com (née privaterelay.appleid.com) is the address for “Sign In With Apple”, which is an oauth-style service that sites opt into to let you use your Apple ID to sign in. Sites offering this as a signup option are already aware it gives users an option to use a private anonymized email address. The toplevel “Hide My Email” iCloud feature is a different thing, can be done independently of a SIWA flow (you…

Not arbitrarily many aliases - there's a limit of (as of two or three weeks ago) 768.

3x256? Weird, perculiar number.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#142

Post by zikduruqe »

dcminter wrote: post #118
setopt wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So any mail to anyrandomstring@yourdomain.com is actually received? Sounds like something that works great when only you do it, but might quickly be abused if it catches on?

If you do this you immediately get thousands of emails a day from bots trying common first names etc. Much better to maintain an explicit list of names you're currently allowing.

This past weekend, I finally have purchased my own domain and was contemplating using it for email.

I had thought about a catch all, but was worried about bots. What is the best option?

Do you create addresses such as:

    eyeball@customdomain.com (for the eye doctor)
    tooth@customdomain.com (for the dentist)
    bank@customdomain.com 
    realfirstname@
    reddit@
    ...
    ...
I would like the ability that if I am in a situation that someone says "give me your email for..." and I would like the ability to just hand them something that is disposable. Would I just stand up say 10 addresses like:

random1, random2, random3... then delete them at some point in the future?

I really like Cloud's Hide My Email, but have been looking for alternatives since I am not sure where Apple is heading post Tim Cook.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#143

Post by simongr3dal »

merlindru wrote: post #131
SXX wrote: post #128

Oh I glad there is still someone at Apple who understood its insanity. If only they made it generate a bit more sensible alias names. UPD: I obviously mean alias addresses template make most of them too easy to recognize.

Can't the aliases be renamed? --- Just checked, they can. Phew. If the forwarding alias was detectable/always used the same schema, that'd also make them borderline useless, just like the `privaterelay` subdomain

But the private relay domain is only used when you sign up through “Sign in with Apple”? A thing you have to support if your iOS app already supports sign up with other third party authentication providers.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#144

Post by fodkodrasz »

drdexebtjl wrote: post #74
MBCook wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were moved to plain old icloud.com, I could absolutely see a bunch of companies starting to filter out all icloud.com email addresses to avoid private relay. Either just because they’re jerks or from bounce issues. Keeping it on a subdomain fixes that problem, to some degree. If the user is named ffjvhtu57325cjdjvg501a2@icloud.com no one is going to think that’s a real address. It’s very obviously a private o…

Hide My Email addresses are not just a random string at icloud.com. They use plausibly-human names, probably generated by a language model. There’s no easy-to-check pattern. They’re not switching the subdomain. They’re keeping it the same. That’s the news. They’re switching the subdomain for the “Sign in with Apple” sign ups, which is not the same service.

> Hide My Email addresses are not just a random string at icloud.com. They use plausibly-human names, probably generated by a language model.

why would random selection from sets of predefined strings and joining them using a "." need any LLM involvement? Oh you need to check if it already taken... maybe for that? I'd use a database though...

These days some people would even generate GUIDs with some language model, I guess...

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#145

Post by AndroidKitKat »

zikduruqe wrote: post #142
dcminter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do this you immediately get thousands of emails a day from bots trying common first names etc. Much better to maintain an explicit list of names you're currently allowing.

This past weekend, I finally have purchased my own domain and was contemplating using it for email. I had thought about a catch all, but was worried about bots. What is the best option? Do you create addresses such as: eyeball@customdomain.com (for the eye doctor) tooth@customdomain.com (for the dentist) bank@customdomain.com realfirstname@ reddit@ ... ... I would like the ability that if I am in a situation that som…

For things I know ahead of time I'm going to need to give someone an email for (e.g. the dentist), I'll pre-make that address and have it ready for when they ask for it. For one-offs / unprepared asks for my email I usually just give them my 'main' initials@personaldomain.com e-mail just for the simplicity... Fastmail does let you use *@personaldomain.com to forward to your main address, but for the rare circumstance in which you need to reply to one of those emails, you do need to configure it in the settings.

Fastmail is probably the best $60/year I spend

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#146

Post by vallerie »

HeavenFox wrote: post #40
hollow-moe wrote: post #11

Using icloud.com domain for legit and hidden adresses is such a typical Apple strategy of holding their own users and "others" (ie. other web services, other users etc) hostage simultaneously. But at least here it is actually a good reason that works for the user.

Case in point: many websites block all VPN except iCloud Private Relay. Thank you Apple!

Private Relay also works because it's on by default for everyone paying for iCloud (including everyone just on the 0.99/month tier for photo backup) - so Apple can use it across their apps (e.g. loading images in Apple Mail) and it doesn't let you single out privacy conscious users!

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#147

Post by zikduruqe »

AndroidKitKat wrote: post #145
zikduruqe wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This past weekend, I finally have purchased my own domain and was contemplating using it for email. I had thought about a catch all, but was worried about bots. What is the best option? Do you create addresses such as: eyeball@customdomain.com (for the eye doctor) tooth@customdomain.com (for the dentist) bank@customdomain.com realfirstname@ reddit@ ... ... I would like the ability that if I am in a situation that som…

For things I know ahead of time I'm going to need to give someone an email for (e.g. the dentist), I'll pre-make that address and have it ready for when they ask for it. For one-offs / unprepared asks for my email I usually just give them my 'main' initials@personaldomain.com e-mail just for the simplicity... Fastmail does let you use *@personaldomain.com to forward to your main address, but for the rare circumstance…

Thanks. I really don't use email that often; I might get 20 emails a month, and those are just notifications versus actual actionable communications that require a response.

I have been looking at Fastmail, along with Purelymail ($10/year), which seems to have similar features.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#149

Post by tjoff »

leshenka wrote: post #136
tjoff wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can make arbitrary email addresses at your own domain, but anybody who feels like it can trivially automatically detect that those are all you. You assume that the domain is used by one person or what? Also, the point of these is typically to prevent spam. Noone is going to spend a fraction of a cent or second to try and figure out who is behind the adress.

> You assume that the domain is used by one person or what? Yes. It's not a guarantee but you can identify several strong signals that suggest that. > point is to prevent spam also yes

In other words, no point or value in selling yourself to apple.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#150

Post by brookst »

leshenka wrote: post #139
saretup wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an additional layer of wall for their walled garden to keep the technically proficient users that are more likely to hop walls.

Technically proficient users can figure out their own solutions for throwaway emails e.g. aforementioned Fastmail.

Sure, but technically proficient users often have other things they want to spend their time on, outside of exercising technical proficiency on every single thing.

Heck, I don’t even do my own oil changes anymore despite it being easy. Life gets busy, you know?

Post reply on HN