
Newmail: Generating random email aliases on OpenSMPTD - gylterud
https://hakon.gylterud.net/newmail/
======
jdmoreira
I do something very similar to avoid giving my email to companies

I receive wildcard@wildcard.domain in a single mailbox and when I register in
a service I use something like

facebook@social.domain, stripe@service.domain

This makes it trivial to see who is leaking my email addresses and also allows
me to tag the emails

~~~
rubenbe
I have the same pattern but added a 6 character hexadecimal postfix based on a
hash.

facebook-com-a2bdc0@domain.com

This makes it less trivial to guess the other domains. (although you could
bruteforce the entire range)

~~~
notaboutdave
This seems like it might be frustrating to manage. Instead of one or two
memorable addresses, you now have two hundred hard-to-memorize ones.

It also might get awkward at the cash register :)

~~~
rubenbe
It's sometimes a bit of a hassle, but I have to python script that generates
and configures it for me. And in some cases I fallback to <bricks-and-mortar-
shop>@domain.com Because that's much easier to spell out to a cashier.

After it's configured, my password manager stores the email too so that's not
a problem

------
jedisct1
I have a cron job that adds an email of the form `month-day@domain` to the
list of aliases.

The address is automatically updated every day.

So whenever I need to an email to register on some app or website, this is the
one I give. It will be gone the next day.

~~~
h1d
You could make it a 'catch all if not defined' domain and just use the service
name as the user part and you'll know who sells your address and easy to
redirect to /dev/null selectively.

------
frio
I'd love to see something like this tied to a password manager to make more of
an "identity manager". Visit a site, click "generate identity", receive a
unique email address, username and password.

------
gylterud
The script is dead simple – you could have written it yourself – and that’s
the beauty of composable systems (like OpenBSD and other Unices).

------
bonyt
It is written in plan9 shell, what an interesting choice for a small script!

> The scripts are written in rc (the shell of Plan9port). You can easily port
> them to any other shell your self. The newmail script itself is roughly ten
> lines.

~~~
gylterud
The shell from Plan9, rc, is simply the one I am most comfortable writing in.
It has very straight-forward syntax. And while the language is very powerful,
it is small enough that I can remember most of the quirks. But I do not think
it is objectively better than other scripting languages.

It is the same with mk (the Plan9 redesigned make). They took a few lessons
from problems they had discovered in make and improved them. And made it
simpler in the process.

------
liuw
I want this functionality but I balk at the idea of running my own email
infrastructure.

I'm fine with writing code to call APIs from email providers to manage email
addresses though.

~~~
gylterud
Running a mail server which receives mail is easy. Getting your e-mails
delivered can be more difficult. But so far (I have been running a personal
e-mail server since 2007), I have gotten most of my e-mails delivered.

~~~
h1d
It's no longer your job to deliver emails. Just use a delivery service like
SendGrid, SES, etc.

~~~
gylterud
It can be if you want to. But yeah, businesses probably want to pay someone
for it. And many ISPs will do it for their customers as well.

~~~
h1d
It's pretty much out of your control. If the server you rented has a tainted
IP reputation, you're done for. Instead of cycling through to get the good IP,
which isn't too easy to tell, you should just use a proxy service.

If you're on a small scale, those 2 services I mentioned aren't going to cost
you much (free and maybe about 5 cents a month.)

I even proxy my hobby personal domain server because I don't want my personal
mails get buried in people's junk folder.

------
pugworthy
So it's not been posted (yet), but isn't it clear that this is yet another
great concept for personal anonymity and online social interaction that can be
majorly used for negative advantage?

