Friday, April 23, 2004

Taking a Step Toward Stopping Spam

One of my friends sent me a link to this, so I haven't actually been able to use it and provide you with a first hand account. However, the idea of the service provided bySneakemail 2.0 is that Sneakemail provides you with disposable e-mail addresses that you can use when registering for access to websites, purchasing things online, etc. The process is very straightforward -- simply choose a username, a password, and give Sneakemail your primary e-mail address, and they will provide you with a fake e-mail address to use in the situations mentioned above. Mail sent to the fake e-mail address gets auto-forwarded to your real e-mail address by the Sneakemail server, and replies that you send look like they come from your Sneakemail address. You can use spam filtering tools on Sneakemail if your fake address starts getting spammed, or simply abandon the fake address.

In theory everything seems worthwhile. I have signed up for an account and will let you know how it works.

My final thought (and I think this about all of these kinds of situations):

Quis custodiet istos custodes?
Who guards the guards?
In other words, beyond trusting them, what prevents Sneakemail from selling all of the original (read valuable) e-mail addresses (especially if the company is sold to, say, an online ad company)?

No comments: