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An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

empty.coffee

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Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#261

Post by tpxl »

spsful wrote: post #187
paraxion wrote: post #179

Hang 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…

If you use Gmail, there's also nothing stopping them reading the emails on the way through. If you use Outlook, there's also nothing stopping them reading the emails on the way through. If you use Yahoo, there's also nothing stopping them reading the emails on the way through. If you use virtually any email provider this is true.

Before, one entity could read your mails, and after, two entities can read your mails.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#262

Post by dna_polymerase »

binwiederhier wrote: post #39

I have a unique email address for every single service that I sign up for, similar to this, though selfhosted. I've been doing this for years and it works wonderfully. If someone misuses my email address, or gets annoying, I can simply turn off the address. Bam! It's the easiest Postfix config in the universe, essentially just: virtual_alias_domains = domain1.com domain2.com virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/vir…

For those who do not wish to interact with their webserver config (or can't) there is AnonAddy, which can be self-hosted (https://github.com/anonaddy/anonaddy) or paid for (https://anonaddy.com/). It's really convenient, with the added benefit (for the paid version) of having a domain, that is used by many people, which makes it easier to hide behind an email address.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#263

Post by Hakashiro »

beeboop wrote: post #140
rootusrootus wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do a simplified version of this. I just use a catchall account with Fastmail and then pick email addresses in the domain randomly. If someone abuses the address, I block it. I specifically do not use addresses that make it obvious what my strategy is. I end up just using a name and number that would look right at home on gmail. I'm also not trying to stop tracking, so much as I'm trying to have my own semi-permanen…

I've been happily using fastmail for years and I think I'm going to be forced to stop. My outbound emails are constantly getting caught in spam and it recently cost me a job offer.

Oh hey, I'm not alone!

In my case, it costed me two offers. One from Google and one from GitHub. Come to think of it, yeah I will begin migrating everything away from FastMail and stop using it completely.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#266

Post by FabHK »

treesknees wrote: post #167
FabHK wrote: post #124

A useful feature the article doesn't mention: In macOS Mail and iOS Mail, when you reply to an email or send a new one, you can choose the "From" address: The options are the usual accounts you have set up, plus, now, a "Hide my Email" proxy generated on-the-fly. I've found it very handy on several occasions.

Great, I didn’t realize this was an option. It feels less useful for replies but new emails I could definitely see myself using this.

Cases where I've used it for replies:

* accidental semi-spam (people sending emails to someone at one of the domains I own, mistakenly) where I wish to notify them that they got the wrong email, but don't want to divulge my main email (and name).

* support emails from services that I signed up with using "Hide my email". When replying, the "From" defaults to my main email, but again, I can switch to "Hide my email".

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#267

Post by [deleted] »

Underphil wrote: post #151
ratww wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I used to use Mailinator, sometimes others, but they eventually end up blocked in Marketing-hungry websites. Even myname+random@gmail.com and similar can get blocked from registration on some websites now. The difference here is the power of iCloud. Services can't afford to block it. This is similar to Domain Fronting [1]. Maybe we should call this email fronting? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_frontin…

This raised a bigger question for me- How did the system get to a point where only big players can set up a service like this?

[deleted]

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#268

Post by ratww »

Underphil wrote: post #151
ratww wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I used to use Mailinator, sometimes others, but they eventually end up blocked in Marketing-hungry websites. Even myname+random@gmail.com and similar can get blocked from registration on some websites now. The difference here is the power of iCloud. Services can't afford to block it. This is similar to Domain Fronting [1]. Maybe we should call this email fronting? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_frontin…

This raised a bigger question for me- How did the system get to a point where only big players can set up a service like this?

It's not really big players per se, but "domains with a lot of users that I can't block". Which of course means "big players" for regular people.

I agree with sibling that the problem is with Email marketing, but for different reasons.

Companies are so addicted to spamming users and selling user data that it becomes unacceptable that users might not want to give away their email.

Another problem is emails being required for signing up to accounts.

Honestly IMHO we gotta get rid of email for signups. I don't know what to replace it with. Hardware keys, maybe?

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#269

Post by justsomehnguy »

gruez wrote: post #190
withinboredom wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing secure about email. It's less secure than Telnet. You can email anyone on the internet as anyone and it will be delivered with NO validation. Clients may/may not validate any DKIM signature and the may/may not validate that it actually came from the domain. It's literally the easiest thing on earth to spoof. Email is sent over cleartext, it is not encrypted. Anyone can read email if they can inspect…

>Email is sent over cleartext, it is not encrypted. Anyone can read email if they can inspect packets. That's obviously false if you bothered to do a bit of searching: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol#... >You can email anyone on the internet as anyone and it will be delivered with NO validation. Clients may/may not validate any DKIM signature and the may/may not validate that it actually c…

> That's obviously false if you bothered to do a bit of searching

Technically correct, best kind of correct.

Sure, it is not plaintext, but anyone with the access to the wire could MITM the connections. Maaaaybe something changed in the last ten years, but I never seen someone not accepting a connection with a self-issued certificate and any warnings (to the end user) if the receiver uses self-issued cert. Which makes the whole point quite moot.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#270

Post by gylterud »

binwiederhier wrote: post #39

I have a unique email address for every single service that I sign up for, similar to this, though selfhosted. I've been doing this for years and it works wonderfully. If someone misuses my email address, or gets annoying, I can simply turn off the address. Bam! It's the easiest Postfix config in the universe, essentially just: virtual_alias_domains = domain1.com domain2.com virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/vir…

I wrote a simple script[0] which generates a new address for each site I register. Then a simple script to look up what the generated address was later. It is written for OpenBSD, but should be easy to adapt.

[0]: https://hakon.gylterud.net/newmail/

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