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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

#51

Post by cubesnooper »

MrRiddle wrote: post #43
vernie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from being self-hosted how does this differ from +suffix Gmail addresses?

It’s trivial to figure out main gmail address?

It’s almost as trivial with this format too, at least to guess what address is used for other services, though it has a strong advantage over using ‘+’ in GMail in that nothing will try this automatically. It’s hard to believe anyone would intentionally try to guess a different service’s email to spam to it, but even so in my setup I prefer to eliminate this possibility completely by adding a random number to the service name: experian12322@example.com, and so on, with no catchall for invalid addresses.

So far the most spam I’ve gotten has been to the address I used for Amazon (probably leaked by a third‐party seller there).

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#52

Post by kingcharles »

newaccount74 wrote: post #4

I've been using yopmail for years to avoid spam, but the problem is that a lot of services have blocked yopmail and other disposable email addresses. The nice thing with "hide my email" and Fastmails "masked addresses" is that the two services use a popular domain, so sites can't easily block it.

I still get sites from time to time that reject custom domains and want an address on yahoo.com, gmail.com etc, which is infuriating.

The worst thing is that so many sites have stupid email validation rules. Even cameo.com, which is a mid-size ecommerce site, doesn't accept a lot of TLDs created in the last 8 years, including mine.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#53

Post by gzer0 »

Kwpolska wrote: post #45
gzer0 wrote: post #34

The 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…

SMS is available as a fallback 2FA method for Apple ID.

Unfortunately, only one phone number is allowed per Apple ID. And I do not have multiple phone numbers to expend for an SMS only 2fa option here.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#54

Post by thetinguy »

gzer0 wrote: post #34

The 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…

As long as you add a trusted phone number you can do Mfa over sms. Not ideal but it is an option.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#55

Post by kayodelycaon »

gzer0 wrote: post #34

The 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. :|

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#56

Post by PrettyPastry »

webmobdev wrote: post #48
vernie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from being self-hosted how does this differ from +suffix Gmail addresses?

Some services do not accept email with a "+" in it.

Some services even accept it to create an account, but not to log in.

One never let me change my email or password when I used the +.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#57

Post by kingcharles »

germinalphrase wrote: post #6

I use this feature extensively. My only wish is that it were easier to send an outgoing email via a Hide My Email address (rather than only being about to reply once the other party has sent the first message).

Fastmail handles this perfectly.

Discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30964570

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#58

Post by z8 »

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'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.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#59

Post by KennyBlanken »

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…

> It's not as shiny as Apple's thing, but it's 100% selfhosted and I own the domain.

Apple's system is "shiny" because it provides near total anonymity, whereas your setup has all the deliverabilty issues of a self-hosted domain and rather uniquely identifies you...at the domain level?

I'm not sure why you are maintaining a hundreds-of-lines virtual table and a web UI, instead of just using a regex or two to capture phil.*@domain2.com or something along those lines (maybe you want to do one including a year or something to cut down on spam), or blacklisting as needed by having postfix reject during the SMTP session so the email is marked as invalid and is removed from the spammer's database.

Or, I dunno, just use VERP? I don't think I've yet run across anyone smart enough to drop VERP from email addresses.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#60

Post by KennyBlanken »

webmobdev wrote: post #48
vernie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from being self-hosted how does this differ from +suffix Gmail addresses?

Some services do not accept email with a "+" in it.

Postfix allows defining any character as a VERP separator.

OP also could have just used a regex in the virtual file.

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