Ask HN: What do you do to prevent your data from being leaked?

1 pointhackathonguy2 comments

I've gotten pretty worried recently about data breaches. I cringe every time I need to sign up with my email/password for a new site. One obvious thing to do is use a password manager to generate random passwords for every website I sign up for, but is there a way to protect my email address from leaking out as well?

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I use a new e-mail address (alias) for every service I sign up to -- especially if it's a one-off transaction or a "short-term" relationship.

That way, if/when I start getting spam to that address or the address otherwise "leaks", I simply disable that alias and carry on.

(I've run my own mail servers for a loooong time so this is quite easy. It may be a little more difficult or involved if you use something like Gmail or whatever.)

In Gmail john.smith@gmail.com works just the same as johnsmith@gmail.com. What's more, you can add a plus sign and any word before the @ sign (e.g. johnsmith+hello@gmail.com) and messages will still reach you, where you can sort them and filter them through labels. ~Hope that helps.

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