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Seperate email for every site you sign up to?

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  • 20-07-2014 11:03pm
    #1
    Chance The Rapper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 494 ✭✭


    I wonder if it's of any benefit to set up a different email for each site you're signing up to for regular use e.g Amazon, boards, adverts.ie, paypal etc.

    Obviously it helps in terms of account security, because if an email address is compromised, only one site you're signed up to is affected.

    Would it be of any benefit or hindrance to your privacy/anonymity if you were on a list somewhere for some reason?


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    #2
    Stuxnet
    Registered Users Posts: 3,735 ✭✭✭Stuxnet


    Much handier to use something like lastpass to generate a unique large random string for you to use as a password for your various site logins. I do not think it would be practical to maintain hundreds of email address as I would need to login into my sites. Also lastpass maintains a list of known compromised databases and can check your lastpass vault to see if your details have been compromised, use their security tool,


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    #3
    Chance The Rapper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 494 ✭✭Chance The Rapper


    Is it not beneficial in terms of stopping Google/ Microsoft building a profile of you?


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    #4
    matrim
    Registered Users Posts: 7,517 ✭✭✭matrim


    If you just want to see what sites are giving your information away and you use gmail you can put your signin email as something like first.last+boards@gmail.com

    You will still get the email to your normal account but the To will have the +boards in it and you can see who has given your email away


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    #5
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,792 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    matrim wrote: »
    If you just want to see what sites are giving your information away and you use gmail you can put your signin email as something like first.last+boards@gmail.com

    You will still get the email to your normal account but the To will have the +boards in it and you can see who has given your email away

    Despite that being a perfectly legal RFC822 address, it's amazing just how many sites reject anything with a "+" in it as an invalid address.


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    #6
    rolion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,362 ✭✭✭rolion


    I have done that long time ago...now I can trace down, every week, more emails coming from everywhere...Amazon, Go Daddy, LinkedIn and other websites that I signed up for news...

    At the end of the day...I gave up as I can't do nothing !
    How can I prove it that they sold the email account or been hacked ! ?
    It was a nice idea at the beginning that slowly, now my full domain names are flooded with spam and undeliverable bouncing back to my domain !

    Good luck with that and let me know how is working out for you !


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    #7
    Recondite49
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,004 ✭✭✭Recondite49


    Chance The Rapper wrote: »
    I wonder if it's of any benefit to set up a different email for each site you're signing up to for regular use e.g Amazon, boards, adverts.ie, paypal etc.

    Obviously it helps in terms of account security, because if an email address is compromised, only one site you're signed up to is affected.

    Would it be of any benefit or hindrance to your privacy/anonymity if you were on a list somewhere for some reason?

    Hi Chance,

    I think this is an excellent idea - I used to use gishpuppy to create disposable e-mails which can be generated quickly. These can then divert back to your principal e-mail address. More recently I've been using Bloody Vikings to divert junk mail and keep track of which websites harvest your data as the Firefox plugin is much friendlier.

    I suppose to answer your question you need to consider your threat model. If you simply want to know who's sharing your e-mail address and ward off spammers, I think the steps you've already mentioned are ideal.

    If you want to stay anonymous, then it might be worth your while going a little deeper. Let's say for instance you wanted to create a Facebook account under an assumed name and need to create a new e-mail alias to do this.

    It's going to be obvious to anyone with access to Facebook or your e-mail provider's records that the request to open an account came from your own IP address.

    As such it might be an idea to think about using the Tor Browser to create an e-mail address under those circumstances but it will require some self discipline to make sure that you only access your e-mails via Tor. One good solution might be to use an e-mail provider than can be accessed via a .onion address such as Bitmessage or Mail2Tor.


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    #8
    Chance The Rapper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 494 ✭✭Chance The Rapper


    I guess if you wanted to keep all the sites for your real identity secure, the best bet would be to use a different email address for each account, and then use lastpass for all the sites' passwords, and then keepass for all the email addresses. Effort though


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    #9
    Spear
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Help & Feedback Category Moderators Posts: 25,094 CMod ✭✭✭✭Spear


    You can cheat to a degree with one normal gmail address, by using a + sign in it:

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/01/dots_in_gmail_addresses_what_happens_if_you_leave_out_the_period.html

    (down towards the end of the article)


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    #10
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,792 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    ahem


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    #11
    Spear
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Help & Feedback Category Moderators Posts: 25,094 CMod ✭✭✭✭Spear


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    ahem

    I have to stay up till 5am to perform some scheduled maintenance, by ability to perform basic literacy failed a few hours ago.


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    #12
    Rucking_Fetard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭Rucking_Fetard


    Spear wrote: »
    I have to stay up till 5am to perform some scheduled maintenance, by ability to perform basic literacy failed a few hours ago.
    You spelt my wrong there aswell.


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    #13
    Rucking_Fetard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭Rucking_Fetard


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Despite that being a perfectly legal RFC822 address, it's amazing just how many sites reject anything with a "+" in it as an invalid address.
    Gmail Now Works With Addresses With Non-Latin Characters

    That's the start of it.


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    #14
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I do the same have a disposable email address's, that I can dump if it becomes a spambot. Not once of every website. But a few different ones depending on what its for.


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    #15
    rolion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,362 ✭✭✭rolion


    A good one...

    Sold a car on Donedeal, used one customised email like mycar_month_donedeal@mydomin . local
    Yesterday, received on that particular email address an offer from Vouchers Ireland asking me to clean-up my carpet !

    If they managed to hack in to Donedeal database (or Donedeal sold my email address) don't they know that I am having only wooden floors in the house !?? :)


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    #16
    Chance The Fapper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 628 ✭✭✭Chance The Fapper


    Interesting.

    I've started using Keepass, as well as a different email address for every site.


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