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- Hacker News
- Maybe they've started seeing sites ban @icloud.com addressesby frollogaston
- Almost surprised it lasted this long but quite disappointingby Barbing
- I guess the new subdomain address implies a paid iCloud user, not a free mail freeloader, and that could be a positive thing.
- Which has more market pull: Some web site or Apple?by msdz
- In the flip side, someone who blocks private.iCloud.com will block the ability to do SSO with Apple, thereby cutting themselves off from Apple’s ecosystem.by trollbridge
- Not really. You could allow private.icloud.com only if they're using Apple's SSO. If someone tries to create an account not using Apple's SSO, then you don't allow private.icloud.com email addresses.by mdasen
- I use Proton aliases everywhere...Well not everywhere, there are indeed quite some places that don't accept a passmail.net address... So I can imagine this becoming a useless feature, at least on some sites.
Btw I only use these aliases for sites where I don't mind loosing the login, otherwise it would the mother of all lock-ins... Would have been nice if I could opt for aliases on my own (secondary?) domain... At least then I could still move them (using wildcards or some exported list).
by teekert - You can create custom aliases on your own domain. I do this for every log in and am migrating old emails to my custom domain aliases.by sxg
- Determined sites could already easily do this. Just detect the patterns used. I agree it's a useless change though.
heave_balks_0g@icloud.com
It shouldn't matter for the sign in with apple because sites are already expressly supporting that.
Email aliasing is hard because you want privacy from a herd of users, but then you're locked into that ecosystem versus a domain you control has no herd, but the upside is no lock-in.
by Cider9986 - > Determined sites could already easily do this
They already DO do it, I don't know how they're currently determining it
by tehwebguy - Not all aliases it generated look like this, some look like these:
In any case fact that some services banned alies is not the reason to make them completely useless instead of making them better.viods01crew@icloud.com methyl.brick1h@icloud.comApple is one of few companies that ia able to push for this with market share.
by SXX - For me personally, Hide My Email is binding me to the Apple ecosystem more than iMessage (but I'm European).by k1next
- Like yes that, but also. Why would I want to hide my email from someone but not from Apple? And why can’t I turn it off and choose not to hide my email? This is one of my top Apple ‘features’ that would make me migrate away, if not for android being similarly awfulby maxldn
- This is one reason I never used it, but another reason is that I never felt that the privacy benefits were worth the hassle of randomized emails.
If I need to make an account with someone I don't trust enough to hand my email over to, usually the right answer is to just not create an account with them.
I have also tried things like having email aliases but what ends up happening is now I have more email accounts aliases to maintain/think about. It's annoying.
I don't personally find the prospect of "receiving spam email" or "having my email account leaked in a hack" to be particularly threatening. Spam just goes to the spam box, it's usually not my problem.
And besides, my real email can get exposed by my own legitimate companies that really should have my real email getting hacked. See also: EquiFax.
by Grombobulous - Does it? I use Hide My Email largely without integration to the Apple ecosystem - I generate new emails on icloud.com and copy/paste them to login forms before saving to 1Password.by Marsymars
- It’s unsettling, you’re either an iCloud customer for life or hundreds of logins could break.by Barbing
- "Useless" is a leap. The kind of site that would block private relay emails is the kind that was already getting my burner anyway. The private relay is for sites I want to hear from, but also want a failsafe in case they're hacked later.by frollogaston
- Exactly. No reasonable business will ban emails from this subdomain.
- I highly recommend either SimpleLogin or Fastmail aliases. The latter are superior because they can be used to reply directly to any received email without needing to set up reverse aliases.
When you own your own domain, the switching cost between providers is small. You can make a dedicated domain just for aliases
Both SimpleLogin and Fastmail have excellent integration with password managers as well
by outlore - > Long story short: now both Sign in with Apple and Hide My Email aliases are going to be issued on the @private.icloud.com subdomain. This makes it much easier to ban all aliases without affecting non-relay mailboxes on iCloud mail.
Could someone clarify why having Sign in with Apple and Hide My Email on the same domain would make a blanket ban easier rather than harder? What am I missing?
by mortenjorck - I guess their thought process is, both alias and non-alias accounts use @icloud.com
You were always able to reserve a normal icloud email address just like you would a GMail account, so banning all icloud email addresses would be banning non-alias Apple customers
That being said, I'm not convinced anyone who wanted to ban aliases couldn't have already. The alias emails look weird enough I'm guessing you could ban them with few false positives.
by BoorishBears - Apple was generating (something)@icloud.com whenever you used that service. Now, it will use (something)@private.icloud.com instead. So you can ban this subdomain instantly, knowing people will be "hiding" with this service by default.
It's like blocking anondaddy, simplelogin etc but not protonmail.
by gobip - Before, the emails were "me@icloud.com", the default for all apple users. There was no way to distinguish normal emails from generated private emails.
Now, they will be "blah@private.icloud.com", so it will be easy to ban the generated/private email that reduces the ability to associate logins across services.
Unclear why Apple would shoot themselves in this way; I hope it's not Ternus complying with anti-privacy.
by w10-1 - Pro tip for doing something like this without apple. Buy or get a cheap domain name. Create a subdomain on it and have it catch and forward all messages to you when sent to that sub. For example:
nytimes@mailsub.example.com -> jono@gmail
anything-else@mailsub.example.com -> jono@gmail
You dont even need to materialize aliases at all.
by jonotime - Gmail will block messages that fail SPF/DMARC alignment unless the forwarding mail server supports SRS.by quinncom
- This lacks the easy control over blocking the “aliases” you’re done with. The real pro tip is to use this domain with something like addy.io (paid or self-hosted) where you can either pre-create the aliases or have them dynamically created for you as they become used for the first time - and having control over each of them so you can block it when you want.by 404mm
- Doesn't work when some service providers only allow email addresses that are on a whitelist of domains. And I have run into more than a few.by fg137
- I’ve been doing this for years. It works fine and it’s fun to see who is selling your email.
But keep good records!!
It gets really awkward when you’re trying to recover an account and can’t remember what custom email you used.
by jedberg - Services like DeepSeek have an email domain whitelist rather than blacklist. So creating your own domain just guarantees a lockoutby LoganDark
- I do something similar, use an open source service called addy.io, bought a domain but you can also use their domains too, and each website has a separate login i create through bitwarden with the addy integration.by quotz