Re:My Email Canary
by Tichy on Thursday June 09, 2011 @08:19AM
(#2636835)
What if somebody triggers password recoveries on all important sites using your email address?
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Re:My Email Canary
by chrisjsmith on Thursday June 09, 2011 @08:35AM
(#2636884)
I use aliases (one shots) for most sign-ups so it's very unlikely to happen. Only 5-6 trusted people know my real address. Also allows me to find the source for all incoming crap email and bin it quickly so I don't have to dredge through it (just drop the alias).
Lol, I'm sorry but you called this guy's process over the top but the more you explain your process it sounds way more over the top.
As I understood it the criticism wasn't of the process but that you had to stare at the canary email every single time you look at your inbox.
Re:My Email Canary
by chrisjsmith on Thursday June 09, 2011 @01:55PM
(#2638047)
That is precisely it.
Re:My Email Canary
by chrisjsmith on Thursday June 09, 2011 @09:10AM
(#2636982)
Why? I have two scripts "new-alias" and "kill-alias" that do all the work that took about 5 minutes each to write.
I automate everything.
Re:My Email Canary
by pavel_lishin on Thursday June 09, 2011 @12:29PM
(#2637709)
Can you share those scripts?
Re:My Email Canary
by chrisjsmith on Thursday June 09, 2011 @01:55PM
(#2638044)
I'd be embarrased if I posted them (they are crap) however here is how they work...
My mail comes directly into a Debian box running postfix on the end of my ADSL line.
new-alias: Echoes the alias onto the end of /etc/aliases, then runs newaliases.
kill-alias: Use sed to remove the line that matches the alias and run newaliases.
Dead simple.
I do something similar. If I sign up at Slashdot, I'll use the email address [email protected], and if I sign up at Gawker, I'll use [email protected]. Those emails get forwarded to my real email account.
Nice thing about this system is that I can immediately tell where spammers got my email address and shut it off. Also, any email that comes in that doesn't contain a SECRETKEY gets ignored, so I don't have to worry about spammers sending to [email protected] and [email protected].
That's interesting to me. What service do you use that lets you quickly generate new addresses? Or are you running your own server?
I also use a separate email alias for each company I deal with. I run my own Postfix servers (primary + backup), but I've now created a web UI with a view to making this usable by others. The URL is in my profile (not sure if posting it here would be considered spam). It's still early days, but seems to work fine for my own emails. If you'd like to use it I'll be happy to create a (free) account for you.