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An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

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Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#71

Post by SalimoS »

binwiederhier wrote: post #62
cubesnooper wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ser…

> It’s almost as trivial with this format too I mean you can pick any format you want before the "@", but yeah my format is trivial. Nobody has tried to do it automatically yet though, as far as I can tell.

I remember Starzplay didn’t accept the + in my email when I tried it (technically I signed up but couldn’t login anymore )

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#72

Post by JZL003 »

There are lots of ways to do this. Postfix is nice but a little heavy. The simplest and most functional way I've found is https://github.com/0xERR0R/mailcatcher since all it does is forward the emails. You can even use a throwaway gmail SMTP so it doesn't get send to spam

Easy to set up on a rpi/cheap VPS, as long as you have a hostname. And while you're there, look for a short domain name so it's fast to type (on credit card kiosks). You can get cheap short non-standard TLD's like .li. I got a 3 character domain for $5 a year, as short as bit.ly, but just for me

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#73

Post by cmg »

devmunchies wrote: post #33

Is this different than me just programmatically adding new email addresses on my domains, which just forward to my primary? Is it just more convenient? I ask for learning, not for skepticism.

It has the benefit of being at a general domain, icloud.com, instead of one that is (in theory) traceable to you for someone who cares enough to do so.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#74

Post by JZL003 »

JZL003 wrote: post #72

There are lots of ways to do this. Postfix is nice but a little heavy. The simplest and most functional way I've found is https://github.com/0xERR0R/mailcatcher since all it does is forward the emails. You can even use a throwaway gmail SMTP so it doesn't get send to spam Easy to set up on a rpi/cheap VPS, as long as you have a hostname. And while you're there, look for a short domain name so it's fast to type (on cr…

I guess it's harder (although not impossble) to send email from this throwaway address, but that has never come up for me, for external accounts

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#75

Post by blokey »

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).

In iOS and macOS mail.app, you can select the from name in the compose sheet and the option to autogenerate and random email address using “Hide My Email”.

Not totally intuitive but pretty decent.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#76

Post by 3-cheese-sundae »

rootusrootus wrote: post #68
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 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 used to do it this way too, but got overwhelmed by dictionary attacks.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#77

Post by JZL003 »

vernie wrote: post #41
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…

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

Also, not as granular, but instead of the + suffix, add a dot in a weird place. So

n.ame@gmail.com or nam.e@gmail.com . Many SMTP servers respect periods as differentiating emails, so services can't delete them. It doesn't help you stop spam, but you can add a gmail filter that n.ame@gmail.com is put in a separate label. And it's very fast to type, easy for non tech-y people

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#78

Post by ohlookabird »

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…

Nice! I do something similar, but using an automatic aliasing scheme so that I don't have to manually configure an email address for each service and other users can use this without me knowing their aliases. In my setup, aliases can contain wildcards, represented as percent signs. If an alias phil.%@domain1.com is set up, all your examples will be sent to the respective aliased address. I use Postfix Admin with a MySQL database. Hence the Postfix setup looks like this:

    virtual_alias_maps = mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_alias_maps.cf,
                         mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_alias_maps_wildcard.cf,
                         hash:/etc/postfix/virtual
The first file is just regular aliases, and is basically a simpler version of the second file (no SQL selections/filters) and could also be merged into a single query with the second file:

    user = mail
    password = 
    hosts = 127.0.0.1
    dbname = maildb_postfix
    query = SELECT a1.goto FROM alias a1
            LEFT JOIN alias a2 on (a2.address = '%s')
            WHERE '%s' LIKE a1.address
            AND a1.active = '1' AND a2.address IS NULL
This works, because the percent sign in the alias is picked up by the LIKE keyword. A setup like this allows me to configure many aliases through Postfix Admin's web admin page, including optional wildcard aliases (depending on which users wants that). It has been working very well for me over the past 15+ years. Also, I haven't looked at that SQL query since then and would likely write it in a nicer way today.

Note: with the above code SQL injection could be possible through an alias name, but given that in this setup I am the only one managing the mail accounts, I was willing to take this risk. :-) Postfix Admin might do some cleaning/validation, but I haven't checked on it.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#79

Post by uuyi »

muhehe wrote: post #40
sosborn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say that about any email service that isn't self-hosted.

That's true, of course. But this is adding another layer of dependency to already fragile reliability. Edit: also with custom domain you can switch email providers.

I use my custom domain with iCloud. I use the anonymous email feature only for crap signups. Problem solved.

Re: An Ode to Apple’s Hide My Email

#80

Post by ec109685 »

manquer wrote: post #29
egamirorrim wrote: post #14

Quoted post unavailable.

They can do that anyway? Hide my email just generates random aliases to your iCloud mailbox which Apple always had access .

If you hide your gmail address, they can now see the email to gmail that they couldn’t before.

But yes, they already have tons of access to email that they could (but don’t) do nefarious things with.

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