Hacker News Reader

mailinatorguyon Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

I built it because of a need and it's worked fabulously. It's hands down doubled my monthly affiliate revenue (i.e. to be clear, that's in the 4 figures).

I think where it failed however is that it's really hard to explain and I sure haven't cracked it. I get a few signups a day, few use it at all.

It's not for everyone - but it definitely works for me and it would work for anyone in the same boat (someone who needs to affiliatize hundreds/thousands of outgoing links)

mailinatorguyon Ask HN: Google Doc email virus?

Um. The TO address is hhhhhh@mailinator.com. Not the sender.

mailinatorguyon Ask HN: Google Doc email virus?

It's my guess that Mailinator is extremely irrelevant to their plan.

They planned to propagate via BCC but they needed a "To:" address - preferably one that didn't bounce.

So they hit the "h" key awhile, then added @mailinator.com

mailinatorguyon Ask HN: Google Doc email virus?

Mailinator here:

Yes, we sent the inbox to a blackhole but keep in mind, Mailinator does not and can not actually "Send" any email.

It's a receive-only service. As always, any email "from" @mailinator.com has had it's reply-to forged (which is pretty trivial).

Also - even before we blackholed the email, it's unlikely any email in that inbox (i.e. hhhh..) was read. Each box has a 50 email limit (FIFO) which was immediately overwhelmed. You couldn't click fast enough between seeing the inbox list and clicking an email.

Mailinator is simply a "receiver" in all of this but we have no indication our servers were otherwise involved.