Thursday 3 February 2005

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Disposable email

Once the spammers become aware of your email address it could be doomed to electronic bombardment for life - responding to spam in order to have your address removed from mailing lists often has the opposite effect as it demonstrates that yours is an active account and makes it a target for further junk mail. Shying away from submitting your email address to online services or giving it to people you meet online isn't the solution.

A more viable alternative is to register an account with Sneak Email and use it to create and terminate randomly generated email addresses as and when the need arises. If you wish to sign up for a web service which requires email verification, but suspect that your details may be passed onto spammers, you can provide a throwaway Sneak Email address and have any email sent to it forwarded to your real address. If the resultant spam becomes unmanageable you can delete the temporary address and create a new one.

Sneak Email can also be used to send anonymous emails - how would anyone know that djd485ds@sneakemail.com is really Jane Doe from California? To make your correspondence seem more credible you can have this address substituted for a name label which will appear in the 'from' line. Anonymous doesn't necessarily have to equate with malice. For instance, you may wish to tell your boss how you imagine the work place would benefit from certain changes without risking repercussions. No I mean it, really - see, no tongue in cheek here. The possibilities are endless.

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