Re:Masked email from Fastmail and 1Password
by smichel17 on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @12:16PM
(#28684494)
> I have seen emails get leaked from hacks or just plain "we share only with trusted 3rd parties!" buried somewhere.
This is why using a different email with each website is glorious! If example.com leaks my example.com@«my domain» address, I can enable stricter filters for that address.
> I suspect if they become popular enough it's only a matter of time before spammers add some sort of "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" to their logic.
This isn't game-over, either. As I noted, if this ever starts happening, I'll change my sieve filter so that any address without a filter rule gets sent to the trash, instead of my inbox. This does mean I lose the "zero friction" benefit, but adding a new address would still be just a single line in a text file. And it's much less lock-in than using the web interface of some given email provider to set up new aliases, since I can copy my filtering config over to any provider which supports sieve filters (and wildcard addresses).
That said, I don't think this will ever be a problem. Because "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" is a pattern that makes you very easy to identify as a spammer. Given the possible address space, I don't see a scenario where the chance of hitting a real mailbox is worth the risk of blowing your cover and getting your mail server blocked.
This is why using a different email with each website is glorious! If example.com leaks my example.com@«my domain» address, I can enable stricter filters for that address.
> I suspect if they become popular enough it's only a matter of time before spammers add some sort of "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" to their logic.
This isn't game-over, either. As I noted, if this ever starts happening, I'll change my sieve filter so that any address without a filter rule gets sent to the trash, instead of my inbox. This does mean I lose the "zero friction" benefit, but adding a new address would still be just a single line in a text file. And it's much less lock-in than using the web interface of some given email provider to set up new aliases, since I can copy my filtering config over to any provider which supports sieve filters (and wildcard addresses).
That said, I don't think this will ever be a problem. Because "this looks like a catch-all account type email, try sending random stuff" is a pattern that makes you very easy to identify as a spammer. Given the possible address space, I don't see a scenario where the chance of hitting a real mailbox is worth the risk of blowing your cover and getting your mail server blocked.