Re:The dots do matter: how to scam a Gmail user
by chrisweekly on Saturday April 07, 2018 @10:22PM
(#16784243)
Yeah they're both spec-compliant, but (IIRC, as of a few months ago), in gmail at least, there's a huge difference:
[email protected] resolves to [email protected], and the "+acme" is simply a useful bit of metadata for Jane to track the provenance of the sender's mailing list.
the "+" and anything following it are ignored. It signifies an optional suffix.
Whereas [email protected] resolves to [email protected] -- a completely different address than [email protected].
The "." is simply ignored as
if it weren't there, making j.anedoeacme and jane.doeacme and janedoe.acme equivalent.
Yeah this is specific to how gmail chooses to handle these spec-compliant-though-often-mishandled characters, but anyone who works with email professionally absolutely has to come to terms with how gmail works.
[email protected] resolves to [email protected], and the "+acme" is simply a useful bit of metadata for Jane to track the provenance of the sender's mailing list. the "+" and anything following it are ignored. It signifies an optional suffix.
Whereas [email protected] resolves to [email protected] -- a completely different address than [email protected]. The "." is simply ignored as if it weren't there, making j.anedoeacme and jane.doeacme and janedoe.acme equivalent.
Yeah this is specific to how gmail chooses to handle these spec-compliant-though-often-mishandled characters, but anyone who works with email professionally absolutely has to come to terms with how gmail works.