invalid@pizzashack.org

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu (dsr at tao.merseine.nu)]

On Sat, Aug 30, 2003 at 09:01:55AM -0700, www.eloder.com wrote:

> hello big dogs. this is for derek martin. sir, how do YOU mail from an
> invalid email address? a general pointer or two would be a chance for
> me to learn. thank you. <this list is great adult education>

Oh, mailing from an invalid address is easy: just tell your mail
software to use an address that ends in .invalid, for example.

Receiving mail is, of course, a different matter. If you're posting to a
public mailing list like this one, you'll see any replies on the list.
People who want to mail you privately, on the other hand, will not be
able to do so.

Two useful middle paths are timed addresses and tagged addresses. A
tagged address contains a code in the username portion which your
filtering software interprets as a "let this mail in, but handle it
specially" code. A timed address is a tagged address where the special
handling is "after a certain time has elapsed, drop or bounce all mail".

Anytime I want to put an address in a webform, but I want to see if they
are selling my address or spamming themselves, I use a tagged address
specific to that site. 

Many people post to Usenet with timed addresses. A few days is generally
long enough for people to respond, but short enough that spammers aren't
using it yet.

-dsr-

-- 
Network engineer / pre-sales engineer available in the Boston area.
http://tao.merseine.nu/~dsr