Posted by spoc on April 3, 2004, at 15:25:02
Hi everyone,
I have noticed that a lot of people here open free accounts somewhere so that they can give out an email address and risk less from having it be found and used by spammers or whatever. I don't know if the following is any easier than that, and maybe it is virtually the same thing. But there are a lot of free services that issue you any number of encrypted versions of your real, permanent screenname, on demand. You can generate one for each use you have, give it a name to remind yourself where you issued it, then be able to tell where the spammer picked it up and delete that one if it's becoming a problem for any reason.
I have generated these encypted email addresses (that forward to my real one) to post at message boards; to make inquiries at a website; to order products over the Internet, etc.; and then if I see that one of them is being spammed I can just blow up that "bridge" to me (and notify anyone I need to in advance).
The free "encrypting" service I use is sneakemail.com. If you create an account don't let the strange-sounding options it gives you when you go to generate a screenname confuse you -- all you need to do is click to Create a new address, then fill in the Label slot so you'll remember what use goes with what name. That will also be the label name that is displayed in the "Details" area of any subsequent unwanted email you receive, so you can detect where it was picked up.
These encrypted addresses are automatically generated as a bunch of nonsensical numbers and letters, in front of "@sneakemail.com." For example -- and this is NOT a real one: z7h993w02@sneakemail.com.
Note that when you *reply* to email forwarded to your real screenname in this way, your real address will continue to be encrypted unless you give it out yourself to a sender. The *sender's* email address will be encrypted too when you receive it, so be careful that you don't hastily assume it's spam! Under "Details" in incoming mail, you will also find the sender's real address (but they can't do the same to find yours).
You can also originate outgoing email from the sneakemail site. There are expanded memberships available for just a few dollars a month if you want more options, such as being able to originate email from your own isp account rather than through logging onto the sneakemail site; or having more bandwidth (storage/forwarding space per month) on the site than you get with a free account.
Sorry so detailed; I probably needed to do no more than say "Hey, go check out sneakemail.com (or the like)!" Alas, that's just me I guess. Hope this will be useful to someone! : )
poster:spoc
thread:332134
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20040307/msgs/332134.html