Counter missuse?

[Guest]

Since a new mail account is automatically created when it is e-mailed to for the first time, would it be possible for a company to change the number of e-mails to 20 by simply changing the number provided in the address? Example:

I give this addres to the company: freemmusic.1.username@spamgourmet.com
As you see, I wish to recieve only ONE message back with, for example, a password.

But the company might change this into:
freemmusic.20.username@spamgourmet.com
before using it.

Is the incident describben above possible? If so, is there any way of protecting?

[ebuleheb]

From the FAQ:

Q. How come the number in the disposable email address doesn't go down as I receive emails?
A. Well, that would make a different email address, wouldn't it? We record the number the first time we see the disposable address, then count down internally to zero. The truth is, after we've created a disposable address, the number really doesn't matter anymore, and another one could be used. The person (or thing) you gave the address to will still have the original number as part of the address, though. ed. - confession: this is not a frequently asked question. No one has ever asked this question

[josh]

yes, it's possible, and no, there's no good way to protect against it.

Is it likely, though? If it ever becomes a problem, we'll address it somehow.

[SysKoll]

Even if the company in question did that, they would gain the ability to send you 19 unwanted messages, provided that you don't block the addy yourself first. But 19 messages is about 2 milliseconds of activity for any spammer. Not worth the trouble of manually fixing the message.

So I think this approach is a very low risk.

[Frac]

Even if the company in question did that, they would gain the ability to send you 19 unwanted messages.

And if they went further and started generating unique emails to get past that limit, they just hit another limit. You're only allowed about 50 messages per SpamGourmet user account in a 6 hour period.

So far, the closest I've come to any abuse is getting "new addresses" generated because the spammer was so clueless at web page scraping and sent to a mangled version of an intended address.

For example, '/guest.5.example@xoxy.net' instead of 'guest.5.example@xoxy.net'.