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A researcher bought noreply.net. Companies started sending him secrets. (arstechnica.com)

submitted 4 days ago by schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 29 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I'm confused as to how and why people would even want to send an email to anybody@noreply.net.

I often get email that says "do not reply to this email" and it appears to be sent from noreply@our.domain. This I understand. So am I understanding correctly that many companies/mailing systems use @noreply.net in the same manner?

But why? Why not to noreply@our.domain?

[–] snrkl@lemmus.org 26 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I have a first name.lastname@gmail.com email address.

Every single week I get a different person's legitimate email because they forget their email is firstname.lastname12345@gmail.com or some other number, and sign me up for stuff..

I get bank statements, rent notices, holiday bookings, xbox live accounts, kayak club membership emails, pizza delivery receipts, Amazon.com accounts and purchases...

You name it....

XKCD calls it "Reverse ID Theft" - I call it "Identity Donation": it's like people think: "here... Be me for a bit... See how you like it..."

https://xkcd.com/1279/

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 10 points 4 days ago

Well that XKCD comic nailed it. There is a doctor in another state with my name and occasionally patients send me their prescription questions.

I also had to specifically ask a lady with a similar phone number to stop giving mine out.

[–] Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

read the article

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 1 points 4 days ago

I did. It does not answer this particular question