this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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I want to use my main mail address everywhere, even public places. But I doubt if I can guard myself against spam.

Is there a provider specialized in spam protection? Or at least good at it?

At last, given your experience, should I even do it?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Isn’t it pretty widely known that many email providers support this?

I just assume spammers would know enough to remove everything from the ‘+’ until the ‘@‘. It’s not like they’re trying to be sparing with recipients. Why not just send to both?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Isn’t it pretty widely known that many email providers support this?

Personally I'm not a fan of "plus aliasing" because it gives away your base address, and it's trivial for spammers to strip the alias. I prefer aliases that completely hide the base address.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Its also VERY poorly and haphazardly handled in websites. Often they won't let me create an account with it. Or I will be able to create an account using the alias, but then I am left unable to login.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

That's why we need formal rules. Once regulations are in place (with big penalties) websites magically start to function properly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Yes. It is pretty easy to work around, but if that is the only tool you have it still can be used to junk a majority of the crap.

If you want a robust solution you can use disposable aliases (which are basically randomly generated) or signed addresses.

I do the latter. So I would generate an email like [email protected]. If you strip or change the string at the end (which is a small HMAC) your message will go straight to junk. It isn't perfect because there is only 4 bytes of entropy in the signature but a dedicated attacker will find a better way to spam me anyways.