Email bragging rights

How many email addresses do you have? When I'm asked that question, my snappy answer is "an infinite number", since I can receive mail on any email address within my domain. The practical answer is somewhere around 10, with only about three really being used on a regular basis. I'm not usually one to brag (ok, just nod and smile at that), but I've been meaning to jot this one down for some time partly just so I can see them all in one place.

Top Level Domains
.com
rsmi	active	bruce.wilson
vtext	active	3126361212
fers	inactive	bwilson
interaccess	inactive	bwilson
.net
lasthome	active	bwilson
comcast	active	brucetwilson
distributed	inactive	bwilson
.org
getright	active	bwilson
wefcvalpo	inactive	bwilson
.mil
us.army	active	bruce.t.wilson
.gov
none yet
.edu
none yet
Well-Known Sites
yahoo	active	brucetwilson
gmail	active	brucetwilson
msn	inactive	bwilson
hotmail	inactive	brucetwilson
hushmail	active	brucetwilson
pobox	none yet
aol	none yet
pobox	none yet

To keep things simple, I've omitted my own domain. Suffice it to say I use two main addresses, plus about six aliases on an infrequent basis.

On a related note, the best anti-spam technique I can recommend is to own your own domain, and host the mail services with someone who makes it easy to set up new email addresses at a whim. Also helpful is if you can have all email at your domain come to you by default.

For example, let's say I visit the DevNull website and decide that I would like to download some software. Their website requires me to enter an email address to which they will send the unlock codes.

Now, I don't know anything about DevNull Inc. or their privacy practices, and frankly I don't want to invest a lot of time reading legalese to decide if it's worth the risk. I just want to download the software and get back to work.

Since all addresses at my domain come to me by default, I can enter "devnull@toomuchblue.com" in their email field, and forget about it. The license comes to me with my other email. I don't have to set anything new up for this particular address to work – it is created simply by naming it.

Later, if I discover that DevNull Inc. is sending me a lot of marketing material I don't want, or worse, they have sold my address to others, I can now take the time (about 60 seconds) to redirect the devnull@toomuchblue.com address into a blackhole. Email arriving to that address is discarded as soon as the sender finishes sending it. It never even occupies any storage space.

N.B. I have already blackholed this address, as spammers harvest email addresses from websites.