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by shhsshs 945 days ago
I have been using a catch-all for about 2 years now with great results. I hadn't thought of hashing/obfuscating the emails though. I think since I use a password manager anyway, I could just generate a random 6-8 character prefix when signing up for a new account, and since it's saved in my password manager it's easy to look up again later (no need for a true hash).
2 comments

> I think since I use a password manager anyway, I could just generate a random 6-8 character prefix when signing up for a new account, and since it's saved in my password manager it's easy to look up again later (no need for a true hash).

Yeah, same. I store all the addresses in KeePass.

The main reason I don't just totally randomize them is just that there have been a few moments where I do have my salt somehow, but for whatever reason, it is either inconvenient or impossible to immediately open up the password manager and add a new entry.

In those moments, being able to deterministically generate the address and then add it at my leisure without having to double-check what I used is nice.

It also likely wouldn't happen to me, but should I ever somehow lose/lose access to both my old emails and my password manager, as long as I have my salt, I can still "remember" my email addresses for important services (e.g., PayPal or whatever) to re-generate the addresses and reset my passwords.

Whatever route you go, be it randomized addresses or hashed addresses, even though I think I am more vigilant and careful than most, it's still nice having an extra-layer to the catch-all that can't easily be targeted by someone malicious without first either somehow obtaining your salt, compromising the service, etc; it's handy being able to immediately filter and flag anything relating to my bank or whatever else if it isn't sent to the right address.

I just append 4 random characters to the email, e.g. domain.com-xy3j@myname.mail . I have to explicitly configure an alias for each of these addresses - this prevents someone from guessing a correct address for a different domain.

If Spam arrives, I can block that specific address and use different random characters to live in peace again.

Keeping the domain readable makes it easier to explain to people that they must’ve “lost” my email address somehow.