Ask HN: What are some use cases for my web service?

You might look into the uses, history, and eventual demise of anon.penet.fi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anon.penet.fi

I like this idea. It serves some sort of need, I'm sure.

I don't see how to monetize it, but if your goal is just to provide a needed service, I think it's pretty cool. It's arguably more convenient than setting up another yahoo or google account.

As to who would use it, one would first assume it would be mostly folks engaged in illegal sorts of activities. Since we've decided to control our population by getting them to live in fear, by making them all guilty of breaking some law, I'd say your userbase is potentially very large.

However, some of those folks (child porn, drug dealers, terrorists) probably shouldn't be helped. There's also the paranoia aspect. How do I know you're not a cop, trying to trap me? How do I know you're really destroying your database? I think anybody that's doing something wrong won't risk using you.

So, taking out the justifiably paranoid law breakers, that need you, but dare not use you, that leaves us with dating and craigslist ads.

Emailing people you meet on http://omegle.com

This sounds like a good way for people who use online services and games to collaborate without the downsides of exposing "real" email addresses (which seemingly inevitably find their way to spammers, search engines, etc).

It could be particularly useful for celebrities, public figures, political protesters, parents, teenagers or anyone who might be otherwise embarrassed (or worse) should their email logs be revealed to an inappropriate social group or the general public.

Whistle-blowers and others who want to leak info to journalists/investigators without revealing their identity right away.

You should include a form that allows a user to notify a person of their maskur address via SMS ...

"I have important info regarding insider trading at YAHOOGLE, please email me at yahoogle-leak@maskur.com"

Normally you'd come up with use cases before you actually implement the idea :) You could encourage people to use it with any sort of online trade (craigslist / ebay etc) but I don't think it'd take long for them to duplicate the behavior should this ever become very popular.

subpoena magnet?

You could possibly create an API for this service and see how people use it. In my current project I have a need for something like this but having to send an email complicates my use case some.

how exactly do you do this?

"If you want to email someone, have them send an email to your maskur.com address, so their maskur.com address will appear in the "From" field, or ask them to mask their email on this page."

at that point, haven't you already communicated with them? either by phone / in person, or via email?

Pretty similar to mailinator.com witch I have been using for a while.

this is exactly what Match.com started as...

hookers can use it on craigslist to avoid giving out their email address to potential law enforcement, i suppose