
The World's Longest Alphabetical Email Address (2004) - ahoy
http://www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com/index.php
======
dreamcompiler
I solve the spam problem by having my own domain with an infinite number of
email addresses. Whenever I sign up for something I use $PERMUTE@mydomain.com,
where PERMUTE is some easily-reversible permutation of the vendor's own name.

This has two benefits: I can easily route/filter incoming email from that
vendor, and if I ever receive spam at that address I know which vendor sold my
info.

~~~
glitchc
Can you do this without running your own email server? If buying email service
from a vendor, costs are usually per user (per address).

~~~
jonshariat
If you have gmail (not sure what other providers support this), you can use +
or . in your email address and add anything you want.

For example: myemail+twitter@example.com or myemail.youtube@example.com both
go to myemail@example.com

~~~
elliekelly
Some email marketers are catching on to this approach though and automatically
strip anything between “+” and the domain.

~~~
bad_user
You could do subdomain aliasing instead (with Fastmail, or with Google Suite
if you try hard enough) and there's no way to detect and strip that, since it
looks and feels like a normal address.

~~~
craigds
It can be detected, just takes a bit more work (look up the domain's
nameservers, see if they point to fastmail, if so rewrite the email address)

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hlandau
The local part of an email address can also contain spaces if in quotes:

    
    
      "John Smith"@example.com
    

In fact, the local part is a set of elements separated by dots, each of which
can be quoted. The following is valid:

    
    
      "John Smith@example.com".foo."John Smith".!$%^&*/@example.com
    

Of course, barely anything supports this.

~~~
hundchenkatze
Handling comments in emails is fun too!

    
    
        Pete(A nice \) chap) <pete(his account)@silly.test(his host)>
    

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#appendix-A.5](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#appendix-A.5)

~~~
dathinab
Note that comments are only valid in mail headers, but not smtp.

Generally even besides CFWS related differences there are some differences in
between which email addresses SMTP allows and which are allowed in mail
headers....

Lastly given that quoting in the local part as well as some special forms of
the domain part are not supported by most programs it's often sensible to
reject them, i.e. treat them as invalid even through technically they are not.
(But you really should support internationalized mails!)

------
NikolaNovak
Frustratingly, in the opposite realm, I setup a really short address on my
domain I wanted to use for business correspondence (b@mydomain.com), and it's
astonishing how many websites/forms reject it due to being "invalid" :<

~~~
airstrike
I usually try a@b.com for forms I don't care about, but often have to resort
to the more verbose nobody@nowhere.com when the validator complains about the
former being too short...

~~~
toast0
webmaster@$whateverdomainyouresurfing is the right thing to do. Stomping on
other people's domains is rude.

~~~
ValentineC
example.com and example.org were specifically reserved for testing:
[https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved](https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved)

~~~
keitmo
I've seen sites that specifically deny @example.com email addresses.

~~~
duskwuff
Which is perfectly reasonable. They're looking for an email address that they
can reasonably expect to deliver mail to, not just an address that is
technically valid.

------
newscracker
On the signup page:

 _> Each FREE mailbox account comes with 25MB of storage capacity, which is a
lot more than what is offered by most free email providers. This can allow you
to store over 250,000 email messages._

This has not aged well since 2003. The amount of bloat in emails now is quite
high since everybody who sends emails wants to use HTML with embeds while also
inserting tracking pixels, images, links, etc.

~~~
tylerrobinson
Gmail blew our collective minds when they started with, what, 1 GB free? And
the gimmicky counter on the login page showing increasing storage free forever
at some rate of a few more kilobytes per second.

As I recall, it was common to have 10 MB inbox storage for free email accounts
around that time.

------
madaxe_again
Congratulations on breaking the HN mobile layout!

~~~
graphpapa
Ahhhh so that’s what happened!

~~~
surround
I probably refreshed the page a dozen times

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notthemessiah
I get annoyed when forms can't process a '+' in my address.

~~~
NullPrefix
Not processing '+' is a way for spammers to self identify.

~~~
tsbinz
If it was about being able to spam, they'd just silently strip the + part. I
think it's just ignorance ... in my own mailserver I have a custom separator
that usually doesn't trip validation functions.

~~~
jrockway
I used - in the qmail days and never had any problems. The + causes enough
problems that I've basically stopped using it.

People seem to spam me, but gmail is pretty good at filtering all that stuff
into the "Promotions" folder, which is nice.

------
mikl
I have my own e-mail addresses at
rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbar.com that I use for fun and
testing form validation. It is surprisingly rare that I find sites that break
over it.

~~~
tzs
I've seriously considered getting some long and meaningless domain (although
not that long) for some serious use. I'd probably go with something like a
prefix of 'm' (for "mail") followed by 64 random bits in hex, so something
like m95aaa5aea09bdc67.com.

Addresses there would only be used as the recovery addresses for vital
services such as bank and brokerage accounts, domain registrar accounts,
telephone company accounts, and mail hosting accounts, and that's probably
all.

By "recovery address" I mean the address that the service provider will use if
someone initiates an "I forgot my password and lost my 2FA device!" password
reset. It's any address that if someone takes control of they can take over
your account at that service starting from at most your user name on that
service.

Why a meaningless name like m95aaa5aea09bdc67.com? To minimize the risk of
someone coming in and trying to take it over via a trademark dispute. For this
I want domain name that I can be very sure I can keep as long as the current
domain system is still in place.

------
gnicholas
Fun fact: having this article on the front page made my iphone render all the
front page text smaller so it could fit the full URL. When I hid the listing,
text sizing went back to normal.

Yet another side-effect of a super long domain name!

~~~
city41
Weird, it just causes horizontal scrolling for me on mobile safari.

------
ocdtrekkie
Apparently, this was previously posted here in 2013. Nobody commented on it or
upvoted it.

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legitster
I mean, there are easier and more universal ways to break signup forms without
needing a service. If that is what you are into.

------
mdszy
Well, you can't because signups aren't available right now.

------
oefrha
This domain makes me wonder if there’s a domain length limit on HN.

Edit: RFC 1035 section 2.3.4 says 255 octets. Could be shorter here, though.
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1035](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1035)

~~~
wereHamster
DNS label name limit is 63 characters, and total length limit 255 (or
thereabouts). Maybe newer implementations allow longer names, you'd have to
test though.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32290167/what-is-the-
max...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32290167/what-is-the-maximum-
length-of-a-dns-name)

~~~
123048713
You can have a lot more fun than that if you want to break things. An IP
address has lots of valid formats nobody uses.

    
    
        ;; ANSWER SECTION:
        wikipedia.org.  599 IN A    208.80.154.224
    

Lets try this in decimal:

[http://3494943456/](http://3494943456/)

Sort of cool, but what happens if we overflow it by adding 2 __32?

    
    
        >>> 3494943456 + 2**32
    

[http://7789910752/](http://7789910752/)

I mean that's cool, but how far can we go?

    
    
        >>> 3494943456 + (2**32) ** 2
    
    

[http://18446744077204495072/](http://18446744077204495072/)

So that still works, what about going further?

    
    
        >>> 3494943456 + (2**32) ** 100
    
    

[http://19769064789825639936542264398379633403153906826257738...](http://1976906478982563993654226439837963340315390682625773828918265710158340601093951126756295848974613063099294244703164628428967968057547050608904859234600159014229329102195101574081057061661948106884800321129818693914608845281661462333814326544389741164009367602548103882724187831587394954463183137735657307019637359169290834318700453890617892714561362370427388384101316010134426924662084888461376218489653794242999053891151382465888482003300085676110173467997003494159830094271947506024974271953414706038068210170338961663202839203641120865263292248718692924915189291455200665479606951612257868495299167071771306894428954788679149900427954823300393640007649397742106635573828425752730305375232721339803871889299281134208211131341001135605446809477409979279627213188610112867929569789492640465736633925065052540962862027736312499143902692033755536952046162410311395501619568814547777271031259247973250866583116853615908352881305587297178183145388745781297005733124832/)

Going further actually breaks some browsers (Firefox can handle longer than
Internet Explorer for example), breaks web servers because they log the full
version before it is transformed, and even acts as a fingerprinting vector.
The limit is usually in the several hundred kilobyte range, and depending on
the way that the underlying operating system handles it, things get seriously
broken very quickly.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Interestingly, Safari on iOS only works with the first link you posted. From
the first overflow it displays an invalid URL error.

You should probably include the OS+browser combo you used, as it does not seem
to be universal.

~~~
chipsa
First and last work for me on mobile Safari, but not the middle two.

------
edm0nd
I guess I can plug my max char .com domain too here. No email tho.

[http://bigtittyjapanesewomenthatlooklikecutecatsandipromisen...](http://bigtittyjapanesewomenthatlooklikecutecatsandipromisenoweirdporn.com/)

------
turnipla
I love that it stores 6000 mails in 6.0 Megabytes.

------
throw03172019
Can HackerNews limit username lengths? This post causes horizontal overflow in
the list and detail view.

Safari - iOS

~~~
viklove
Why does this read like a JIRA comment left by a PM

------
ScottWRobinson
All of my web apps limit email addresses to 128 characters. This domain alone
is 67. If you exceed the 128 character limit then I'm not sure I want you to
sign up anyway...

------
aog
While this seems excessive this would actually be easier to use-

amazonsupport@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com

------
surround
Just like your mom.

[https://your.mom/](https://your.mom/)

------
wayneftw
The URL of this story will now screw up the hckrnews.com UI for about a week.

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paultopia
Oh joy, OP's username trashed mobile safari's rendering of HN

~~~
prostanac
it's the linked domain name, OP's username is "ahoy"

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MaximumMadness
This must have been a QA nightmare when it originally launched

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par
No longer accepting new signups, which is disappointing :(

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NikolaeVarius
I think the links at the bottom are more interesting than the site

