One thing that wasn’t included in this article but is amazing is being able to deactivate an email address. It results in a total dead end for whomever it was given to.
Check point 5 on the post.
An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
201–210 of 298 posts
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been thinking of a new way to use my email... - Only use one email address: hi@example.com - Always add a filter: hi+hn@example.com - Send all emails without a filter to SPAM Since it's not a common strategy, it is much more likely that spammers remove the +hn before sending an email than add one.
I have tried this approach. Unfortunately, some services will not accept plus sign in the username no matter what RFC says. On top of that, some services seem to not like seeing the service name in the username. I.e. foo.tld will refuse sending email to mailbox+foo@mydomain.tld.
> I.e. foo.tld will refuse sending email to mailbox+foo@mydomain.tld.
While I never had that issue, I had Foo’s legal service contact me about using their trademarked name in my email (a short explanation cleared it up)
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#203The only thing really holding me back from wanting to use iCloud mailing services is the current implementation of MFA on Apple services. It would be fine if you were allowed to use normal MFA options, but no, that is not possible. Instead, you MUST confirm your logins via already signed in Apple-devices only. There is no other way. Cannot use phone number (for good reason, but that is besides the point), cannot have…
Actually, Apple allows SMS and recovery keys as a fallback and there is an account recovery option if none of these work. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915 Google on the other hand… I’ve seen two people lose their Gmail accounts even they knew the password because google required verification from a mobile device that no longer existed. :|
Google supports MFA apps. I use Microsoft's and I've been able to recover after switching to a brand-new phone without moving data over because Microsoft syncs with cloud services. (iCloud on iPhone)
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm doing the exact same thing. Built a small web app that lets me manage all my email aliases for the domain. Unfortunately there are a couple of websites that do only allow a select list of whitelisted domains meaning I cannot use my own, but for the other 99% it works wonders. I wish I had had this idea ten years ago, it would have saved me so many headaches.
Who whitelists email domains? Do they explain why?
I think Aliexpress does it, at least I wasn’t able to use my domain and had to use my old gmail account.
All I got was "not a valid email" or something like that.
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#205My pal nick and I built something called Cloaked Email for our startup Gliph back in August of 2012. [1]
Apart from our early integration to send and receive Bitcoin on Coinbase, Cloaked Email was the most successful part of our privacy focused startup, not only in its ability to attract press coverage but in generating revenue as well.
We believe our work contributed to forcing criagslist to introduce their email relay service. Craigslist went so far as to block email from cloaked email users. [2]
Doing this well and to take on the responsibility of maintaining ~forever is a huge thing.
It is great Apple has recognized the importance of this matter and brought it into their platform in such a straightforward way.
One of the most engaging actions we had was people re-rolling for a different random email address. People just loved seeing what they might land on next.
[1] https://blog.gli.ph/2012/08/14/delivering-privacy-gliph-cloa...
[2] https://blog.gli.ph/2013/07/22/cloaked-email-and-craigslist-...
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#206A bit of a plug, but I have written a small piece with some suggestions for services that could be used to hide and not share your main account as well as some pros and cons to them here - https://psyonik.tech/posts/keep-your-email-private/
TL;DR - Cloudflare email works great if you have your domain on Cloudflare, Firefox Relay is cheap and will work with emails up to 150KB and a number of email providers give you the ability to create aliases (Runbox allows up to 100 aliases).
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#207Hang on, though: doesn't this essentially hand Apple a big list of which domains you communicate with and how frequently? There's also nothing stopping them reading the emails on the way through. I know a lot of people trust Apple more than Google, but you're essentially signing up for a vendor-locked product that you're hoping Apple will continue to support, with no guarantee they won't collect - even at an aggregat…
There is no lock in - you can login to "whatever app" and update your email to a new one anytime you like. It's just an email address in the end.
Also, unless you're encrypting your emails, can't everyone read your emails "on the way though" anyway?
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#208I built a similar service. The benefits include; 1. Custom domain , 2. unique email addresses, 3. don't have to be a Apple user.
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#209This is nice and all, until your apple account get locked (for no good reason)
Or you want to send email (not a reply). People are better off not using Apple’s HideMyEmail. There are better ways that allows this on your domain - no lock-in! Or no lock-in with a device or browser (because without that it’s a bigger pain).
You can send! It's not restricted to replies. See here: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-hide-my-email-iph...
Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you get a PGP browser extension they all do. It’s pretty inconvenient to use though, sending encrypted attachments and giving the password offline is probably the only thing most people are up to.
The location of the fastmail office has zero impacts on this. If the complaint was that the PGP extension was developed in Australia then that would be a valid complaint. But email hosts themselves are not private against government requests.
I’m not the one complaining and I’m not sure what their complaint means either.