At this juncture, we’d like to think
that most internet users have
cottoned on to the idea that it’s a
good idea to have a junk email
address, one used solely to log into
sites of dubious character. There
are so many sites that demand you
give them your email address to
log in (so they can send you a
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nearly essential to have an email
address exactly for that purpose.
Inevitably, the email address used
will get sold by some
unscrupulous site owners to
spammers, and you can expect
the given address will
forevermore be polluted by
endless waves of spam mail.
Better for that to happen to a
secondary email address than
your main one.
But having a second email
address is just the beginning. If
you truly want to protect your
online identity from those who
demand it, then you can try some
of the additional tools we’ll be
covering in this issue.
Temporary
email addresses
It’s easy enough to create a
secondary email address – just go
to an online email provider like
Gmail, Outlook, Mail.com or any of
the many free online email
providers out there and create a
new account.
But these accounts do have
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demand that you give up some
personal information to sign up- your mobile number, for
example, so there’s still a link back
to your real identity. That link may
be held by the email provider, and
you have to trust that they will not
give it up.
The alternative is to use a true
burner email address, one that has
no ties to your personal identity
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of time. Thankfully there are
dozens of websites that can help
you out with a temporary email
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try visiting one of these sites: - temp-mail.org
- http://www.guerrillamail.com
- http://www.fakemail.net
When you visit one of these sites,
it will give you a fake email address
Disposable identities
Nathan Taylor explains how to create a burner identity to keep your real one safe.
HELP STATION
Security & PrivacyFakeMail, one of
many sites that
provide burner
emails.Apple’s burner emails
As part of its iOS 13 update, Apple introduced an
integrated burner email system to go along with the
Sign in with Apple ID option. When you use Sign in
with Apple ID on sites that support it, you’ll be given
the option to hide the email address associated with
your Apple ID. If you do so, Apple will provide a
temporary email address to the site and relay
messages from that site to your main account, hiding
your real email address.
Unfortunately, Google and Facebook, the most
commonly used automatic sign in accounts, do not
yet share this feature. When you use your Google or
Facebook account to sign into a website or app,
there’s a very high chance that you’ll be giving up the
email address associated with that account
(technically it depends on permissions, but your
email address will almost always be provided).
Sign in with Apple ID gives you the
option to hide your email address.GuerrillaMail,
which allows
both sending
and receiving of
emails (but does
require you to
solve a captcha
to send mail).