How to win friends

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 11:38:37AM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> A lot don't take + in email address usernames.  + is perfectly legal
> according to the RFC.
> 
> + has an interesting effect, at least with sendmail.  For delivering,
> sendmail ignores but preserves everything after the +.  You can use
> this create variants of your email address and use them to track down
> who passed your email address around.  So, for example, you could tell
> Future that your email address is peter+future-hcDgGtZH8xPowKkBSvOlow at public.gmane.org  Mail to
> that address would be delivered to peter-hcDgGtZH8xPowKkBSvOlow at public.gmane.org  But you would
> know that any mail to peter+future-hcDgGtZH8xNBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org came because Future
> gave out your address.

gmail nicely allows that too.  Very annoying that many websites don't
allow + in the email, given it is very much legal.

So many useless website designers out there. :(

-- 
Len Sorensen
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