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Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

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Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#331

Post by OJFord »

dotancohen wrote: post #329
OJFord wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it's many years since I've used gmail, don't have an account to check and describe exactly. I suppose I should've said 'you certainly used to be able to', I don't know for sure you still can.. would be dumb to remove that though. Iirc there was a section of settings called 'sending & receiving', and there was a drop-down to select 'reply from same address' or similar.

That option is only for fixed addresses, not catchall addresses. I.e. if your main email address is ojford@ojford.com but you're also preconfigured e.g. foobar@ojford.com you could set that option to have Gmail use either ojford@ojford.com or foobar@ojford.com as your return address, depending on the originating email's TO address. However, if you _also_ have a catchall address and somebody sends to newservice@ojford…

Hm.. ok, I thought it worked but perhaps not - it has been a long time. I use my own client now, so obviously it behaves exactly as I want :) (which is as you describe).

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#332

Post by OJFord »

neoberg wrote: post #325
OJFord wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it's a GDPR violation, but it does turn any contact into spam - the +less address didn't solicit any contact. Not that spam laws are enforced or particularly enforceable.

It's a violation because you have to get explicit permission for each and every way of communication. So giving permission to be contacted through a single email address doesn't mean you gave permission for the phone or in this case another email address.

True, though there are marketing comms laws that predate GDPR (at least in the UK) that cover that too - that's what I meant by it being unsolicited spam.

In either case, the existence of the different authorised email address is irrelevant.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#334

Post by madamelic »

DocTomoe wrote: post #304
8organicbits wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the challenge is knowing what parsing rules apply to which domains. Gmail supports the + thing, but that's non-standard. Is that something you tried to handle in a general way?

> Gmail supports the + thing, but that's non-standard Plusaddressing is valid and has been since 1982[1]. It's part of RFC822 and the subsequent RFC2822. The fact that many websites do not allow + in an email address during validation is a common programming mistake and the sign of an undertrained engineer. [1] https://people.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/plus-signs-in-email-a...

> The fact that many websites do not allow + in an email address during validation is a common programming mistake and the sign of an undertrained engineer.

Or just sanity.

I am totally onboard (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31797121#31822961) with having compliant parsers (or just not using them)

But the RFC from what I can recall is _wild_. I can't find the part so maybe I am mixing something else up, but I believe you can embed comments into an email address.

All I am saying is that the possible scope of valid email addresses is likely so large, trying to write a parser for them is a sign of an underexperienced team rather than not having one at all.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#335

Post by archi42 »

archi42 wrote: post #323
DocTomoe wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's spam detection evasion. Also, depending on the legislative framework, it might be illegal: If I give company my email address with a plus and an identifier in it, I give them permission to contact me under that specific email (with the plus on it). If I as a result receive emails under another address (without the plus on it), this might be a GDPR violation.

The original post never said they were using these lists to send unsolicited emails. It's your assumption they are a spammer; while I said I can imagine non-nefarious reasons to collect these lists. For example: A lot of pentesting companies offer "darknet research" as part of their engagement; these have a non-nefarious use for these leaks, including private addresses: Given a list of customer's employees it's easy…

Hm, just saw: Something ate the "evil dude slash dudette slash ...".

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#336

Post by matthew1471 »

jatin085 wrote: post #316

I had a Yahoo account created in year 2002, the time when most of the sites including Yahoo Mail (I suppose) did not support HTTPS. Not sure if that was the reason but with every email exchanged, I found the number of spam messages kept increasing. Later in around 2015, I started using Yahoo's 'Disposable Email Addresses' features but the spam load on my original email address was too high that I had to create a new…

I have a similarish story - I went to New York once (I didn’t book it). I connected to the hotel WiFi and any other free WiFi in the area. I wasn’t using TLS. I received a lot of New York related spam for a while.. it dropped off after a while - I guess these lists have a shelf-life.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#338

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

Semaphor wrote: post #286
LinuxBender wrote: post #36

Is the fear of "people selling your email to spammers" a modern myth, or are spam filters that good? Email databases for sale are not always for spam or malware. They are often used for tracking and cross marketing calculations. Placing a companies name in the address will signal a canary and they may likely filter your contact out of their database or at least flag it and treat it differently. I've been using email…

> few vendors got upset that I had their name in the address No one got upset, but a record label was confused and asked me about it, and another company had their legal department ask me under what license I use their TM ;) In both cases a simple explanation was the end of it.

> another company had their legal department ask me under what license I use their TM

Please name!, or give details of size.

Not for shame — for curiosity!

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#339

Post by kevinmgranger »

OJFord wrote: post #310
dotancohen wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not from within Gmail's web interface. I personally use Thunderbird and AWS SES to send mail, but many people who grew up on web interfaces are intimidated by Thunderbird.

Yeah you can, you can default it to send from the address the email you're replying to was sent to too. It's the only thing I missed when I switched to Fastmail. (Which has since added it too, but not before I left in favour of my own SES-based solution.)

I'm certain this didn't exist back when I had this issue.

Re: Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam

#340

Post by kevinmgranger »

dotancohen wrote: post #282
sneak wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can send emails with any From: header you wish.

Not from within Gmail's web interface. I personally use Thunderbird and AWS SES to send mail, but many people who grew up on web interfaces are intimidated by Thunderbird.

Does thurnderbird let you change the from on an ad-hoc basis, or do you have to manually add different identities?
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