Show HN: Why share your email address when you can hide it?(mailphantom.io)
mailphantom.io
Show HN: Why share your email address when you can hide it?
https://mailphantom.io/
30 comments
congrats on your lanch? do you mind me asking how much is your MRR?
I never intended to make profit from this.
But the fact that Apple thinks email privacy is important, made me think there may be something here.
I am sure this does not answer your question, but hope that helps with some context.
But the fact that Apple thinks email privacy is important, made me think there may be something here.
I am sure this does not answer your question, but hope that helps with some context.
Are you keeping a copy of everyone's emails so you can mine them and sell the data? You'd make a fortune. That stuff is worth a lot.
Also, can you prove that's not happening?
Also, can you prove that's not happening?
No I do not keep any emails, and a valid concern for sure.
I mean I do not have an easy way to show anyone. But I have thought about how to deal with such a request, and my thinking was to have a video call with someone and show. For the moment that is how I would solve that. Not ideal but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean I do not have an easy way to show anyone. But I have thought about how to deal with such a request, and my thinking was to have a video call with someone and show. For the moment that is how I would solve that. Not ideal but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The only way to relieve yourself of the burden of proof is by never having the actual emails of anybody. Would it be possible to offer your service under that constraint? That would be extremely cool!
I hide my email address by using Fastmail which supports wildcard users e.g. *@example.com so I can effortlessly assign a unique email address to anyone who asks for one.
FYI, after years of running this experiment I’ve found that vendors don’t tend to share their email address lists. One of the only exceptions that comes to mind is someone scraping my LinkedIn email for e-commerce marketing.
FYI, after years of running this experiment I’ve found that vendors don’t tend to share their email address lists. One of the only exceptions that comes to mind is someone scraping my LinkedIn email for e-commerce marketing.
I've gotten a fair few emails to my address used for git commits also. Doubt each recruiter is compiling it manually, but someone must have built a script that cloned git repos and inspected the data, as I don't think GitHub shows it in the UI
> I don't think GitHub shows it in the UI
Add `.patch` to the end of the URL when viewing a commit to view the full commit, including user information. E.g., ‘https://github.com/<repo>/commit/<hash>.patch’.
Add `.patch` to the end of the URL when viewing a commit to view the full commit, including user information. E.g., ‘https://github.com/<repo>/commit/<hash>.patch’.
That's true. you can also put .keys or .gpg on the end of a user profile to get ssh or gpg public keys respectively (also works for GitLab). I guess I've always just considered such routes to be part of the API since they're not linked in the UI
I've done exactly they same for many years via email aliases in MS Exchange. I too discovered that the only real sharing/leaking of email addresses was my paypal and ebay ones, and a legacy one that I used to use on USEnet back when we all didn't know better.
My take-away was: always proxy ebay/paypal accounts behind another mail provider, and be ready to change those emails when they get compromised.
My take-away was: always proxy ebay/paypal accounts behind another mail provider, and be ready to change those emails when they get compromised.
> I hide my email address by using Fastmail which supports wildcard user
Yes this service is not a new thing, and people come up with different ways to solve this problem.
> FYI, after years of running this experiment I’ve found that vendors don’t tend to share their email address lists.
I pretty much agree with you. But it happens, and I do feel better knowing even if they do, I needn't worry :)
Yes this service is not a new thing, and people come up with different ways to solve this problem.
> FYI, after years of running this experiment I’ve found that vendors don’t tend to share their email address lists.
I pretty much agree with you. But it happens, and I do feel better knowing even if they do, I needn't worry :)
1 Register a new Gmail account
2 Redirect all incoming mail from that account to your already existing, personal account
3 Set a filter so all redirected mail gets a label and is archived automatically
4 Only look at that label when you need to
You're welcome, guys!
2 Redirect all incoming mail from that account to your already existing, personal account
3 Set a filter so all redirected mail gets a label and is archived automatically
4 Only look at that label when you need to
You're welcome, guys!
I'd love to see a simple browser addon that takes care of generating an email for new sites, because there are several similar services out there and I think on all of them you have to manually go generate an email.
Kind of a silly preference maybe because it's still easy to do manually, but it would make the paid service more attractive I think.
Kind of a silly preference maybe because it's still easy to do manually, but it would make the paid service more attractive I think.
I wanted something similar. https://instalogin.co (shameless plug), any questions, let me know.
Blur by Abine.
Also masks your phone numbers, your credit cards and is a password manager on top of that.
https://www.abine.com/
https://www.abine.com/
I used abine and then created my own, because I wanted it simple, and their offering got a bit bloated with those other services.
Yes, they do employ a quite holistic view on online privacy; requiring you to put a lot of trust in them. I did not intend to diminish the value of your service.
No not at all silly, I want to get to this as well.
Firefox Relay is what you are looking for.
This reminds me of anonaddy.com. It's free for some basic features which I've used and I'd highly suggest it. You can use fake emails to avoid spam and turn them on, off, or eliminate them entirely.
Great for a particular watch store that LOVES to sell your data.
Great for a particular watch store that LOVES to sell your data.
If I'm seeing this correctly, the free https://mailhide.io/ seems very similar
Keep in mind that this sort of email "cloaking" will cause false positives in fraud prevention systems. Especially if coupled with using a VPN or Tor.
Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. This appears to be a commercial site that requires an account and payment up front.
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
Dropbox is one of the oldest and most known Show HNs, that was a commercial site that required account creation up front
I am pretty sure OP made this and other people are able to play with it.
This is something I made and can be played with :)
It worked, some of my friends were using it, but I never really improved on it although it was always in the back of my mind to do so at some point. So December 2020 seemed like a good time to do this.
I completely rebuilt it, but again, did not really expect that there will come much of it, it is really just for myself. It seemed that the problem I was solving was really just a problem that I had.
But then Apple announced their Hide My Email (albeit just on Apple devices) service at WWDC 21. I was like: "Hey, if Apple thinks there is something here, maybe other people would start thinking about it too."
I want to continue building on this; I've had some ideas (browser extensions, Mobile, business plan, etc. etc.) that I want to implement sooner rather than later. There is a small fee for using the service and I believe that there may now be some people, non-Apple or otherwise users, who would start to see the value of this and be willing to pay for this service.
I have not tried Apple's Hide My Email, but I think what makes Mailphantom different is that:
1. You can reply to an email; and 2. You can also add your own custom domain which only you will have access to