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How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

bitwarden.com

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Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#31

Post by dinglestepup »

tamimio wrote: post #28
toomuchtodo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an important consideration; email sovereignty is at odds with a domain hosting relay aliases where you can blend in with everyone else. Perhaps the solution is a mechanism where you can migrate aliases between services, creating new aliases and updating at each service, and invalidating old aliases, all programatically. Somewhat similar to token and secret rotation. It's just a string identifier that can be an e…

Or maybe having an option to generate aliases using my own domain. I don’t mind exposing my domain or even creating a new domain only for this purpose, say @aliasdomain.com. That way, I am still in full control and utilizing the generated aliases.

Most people use a catch-all email with custom domains — and Bitwarden does have an option for that.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#32

Post by dinglestepup »

amelius wrote: post #30
dinglestepup wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not in the same category. You can use Firefox Relay as an alias generator within Bitwarden. It provides a convenient UI and an integration with the password manager.

I still don't understand why I would need Bitwarden if I use Firefox Relay, sorry.

Integration. When signing up with a new web service, you can just pop open Bitwarden and will generate both a unique email alias and a unique password, prefill the sign up form, and save the details to the password manager.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#33

Post by tamimio »

dinglestepup wrote: post #29
tamimio wrote: post #23

That’s great, but there’s a caveat. When I normally create a random email with my own domain as a username, I am not tied to a specific service. I can always migrate to another one without having to take any action. However, if I used this with Fastmail, for example, the generated emails are with fastmail.com or similar domains that aren’t under my control. If I wanted to migrate in the future, I would have to redo a…

As mentioned somewhere in this thread, using a custom domain poses other risks, in some cases more significant. All your aliases will be forever tied to your identity (and potentially de-anonymized by a single leak).

> All your aliases will be forever tied to your identity

A separate domain can be used if really needed. But even with using my own domain, I don’t see it as a problem. After all, emails are not anonymous, and a leak with an alias with a custom domain is still meaningless and doesn’t affect other services.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#34

Post by tamimio »

dinglestepup wrote: post #31
tamimio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe having an option to generate aliases using my own domain. I don’t mind exposing my domain or even creating a new domain only for this purpose, say @aliasdomain.com. That way, I am still in full control and utilizing the generated aliases.

Most people use a catch-all email with custom domains — and Bitwarden does have an option for that.

> Bitwarden does have an option for that.

That’s good to know, thanks!

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#35

Post by dinglestepup »

tamimio wrote: post #33
dinglestepup wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned somewhere in this thread, using a custom domain poses other risks, in some cases more significant. All your aliases will be forever tied to your identity (and potentially de-anonymized by a single leak).

> All your aliases will be forever tied to your identity A separate domain can be used if really needed. But even with using my own domain, I don’t see it as a problem. After all, emails are not anonymous, and a leak with an alias with a custom domain is still meaningless and doesn’t affect other services.

Most domain registrars require providing identity details. Even if these details are private, a single leak or a config mistake on this domain will expose your real identity, tied to all aliases. With an alias service or a shared email provider you don't have this risk as you don't have to provide your real-life identity.

So while it's tempting to use one random alias (h3hj4gjh234@yourdomain.com) for a high-risk service and another alias for a critical service (github@yourdomain.com), these aliases are easily identifiable as belonging to the same person.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#36

Post by dinglestepup »

OptionOfT wrote: post #10
Ringz wrote: post #9

It's been like this for years. However, with one of my own domains and a catch all rule in the e-mail server. Why? From time to time, some services require that you send emails with exactly this e-mail address as the sender. And that doesn't just work with most services. Because in such a case, you have to turn exactly this e-mail address into a real account with a mailbox.

AFAIK Fastmail is the only service that allows you to respond from an arbitrary email address (of course, provided that you prove that you own the domain). You can do it in Office 365 but it's tedious, you have to add the alias and then you can email from it.

Startmail.com and Protonmail.com allow responding from alias email addresses.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#37

Post by eli »

dlkmp wrote: post #3

Is this really a problem people have? I personally just use some free mail account for all low-priority stuff without push notifications enabled in my client apps.

If one address is getting spam I can just turn it off or filter it to the trash.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#38

Post by NoboruWataya »

tamimio wrote: post #23

That’s great, but there’s a caveat. When I normally create a random email with my own domain as a username, I am not tied to a specific service. I can always migrate to another one without having to take any action. However, if I used this with Fastmail, for example, the generated emails are with fastmail.com or similar domains that aren’t under my control. If I wanted to migrate in the future, I would have to redo a…

Bitwarden allows you to specify a custom domain for this (assuming that your email forwarding service is configured to work with that domain).

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#39

Post by NoboruWataya »

This seems to just generate a random string to go with whatever domain I have set. Personally I prefer my email aliases to be of the form `@` or `@`. That way if you do start getting unsolicited email it is crystal clear who is spamming you (or has sold/leaked your data).

In fact, given it seems to just put a random string in front of a domain name you give it I'm a little curious as to why they need your API key at all - is it just to ensure that you are not creating duplicate email aliases?

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#40

Post by NoboruWataya »

dumpHero2 wrote: post #19

How do you send email or reply from the alias that you create?

It depends on the alias service you use (this appears to just give you another frontend to your alias service, eg, Addy.io or Firefox Relay). I know with Addy.io, forwarded emails have a special "Reply-To" header which is an address that Addy.io monitors and will forward your response back to the original sender. So replying to email delivered to your alias isn't a problem, though I think initiating an email from an alias would be tricky.
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