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Detecting throwaway email addresses during registration (media.piefed.social)
submitted 1 day ago by rimu@piefed.social to c/piefed_meta@piefed.social
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Spammers, trolls, and ban evaders often use temporary email addresses. PieFed now checks a list of known temporary email providers and displays a warning icon next to registrations that use such services.

If registration mode is set to "Open" (no approval needed) then the site admin(s) receive a notification instead.

A throwaway email address isn't always a bad thing but it's one factor that admins might want to take into account.

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[-] MangoPenguin 6 points 23 hours ago

Seems like an overreach. Most spam I see is from gmail.com not alias services.

[-] oranki@piefed.social 32 points 1 day ago

I have to chime in and say this feels a bit underthought feature. I use a throwaway email for everything possible, and I would imagine a large portion of Fediverse users do that too.

I also get the motivation behind the feature. I didn't feel like throwaway addresses are worth it before I started using them. They may seem like an obvious spammer flag. But I'd say it's 50/50, just like with any free email provider like gmail or Proton mail.

[-] fr0g@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago

You say it's 50/50 based on your own experience/anecdotal evidence. Admins will probably be able to make that determination with a much greater deal of accuracy based on what they see happening on their instance. So it makes sense to leave the choice to them/enable them to make that choice, right?

[-] oranki@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

True, I failed to mention that I think there could be a setting to enable the feature, or dismiss the warning per-account. @rimu@piefed.social maybe consider this?

[-] rimu@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

Sure

[-] rimu@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

We'll see. If it turns out to be useless noise, I'll remove it from the signal.

[-] Undearius@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

I think it's good that it's a simple flag and not an outright block.

It's just a way for admins to see "maybe take a closer look at this registration."

I'm sure there are a lot of legitimate users that use these types of emails, though.

[-] RumorsOfLove@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 day ago

Hello! Representing a real human with a throwaway registration ๐Ÿ‘

[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Yeah but we all know you're a troll @RumorsOfLove@lemmy.dbzer0.com

[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

I don't really understand the hostility to this. Do users understand why emails are part of account registration in the first place instead of letting you sign up without an email?

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago

I literally do not.

[-] modeler@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Because people forget passwords and demand a password reset mechanism. Also a place to send terms and conditions and changes to those.

[-] fr0g@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

To be fair Lemmy does allow you to sign up without any email at all (or at least used to, dunno if they changed it), so it's not surprising that this goes against many peoples expectations.

[-] rimu@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Pretty much every Lemmy instance requires email. The only ones that do not require it are small enough that spammers haven't found them yet.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago

I have to say that's extremely unfortunate that you would add such a feature. We use aliases to maintain our privacy and this is come corpo surveillance shit. Not cool.

[-] rimu@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago

Aliases are different and not flagged by this feature. It just looks at domain names.

Multiple big Lemmy instances have been using the exact same blocklist for a long time (although it's not a core feature, they've patched it in somehow). I got the idea by lurking in the Lemmy matrix rooms and seeing their discussion.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Aliases are different and not flagged by this feature.

How are they meaningfully different? I just checked the list you posted above and several of the alias domains I use are on that list.

I got the idea by lurking in the Lemmy matrix rooms and seeing their discussion.

Did you think about it before implementing it?

[-] rimu@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago

Ah I see we are using the word alias in a different way. I was using 'Alias' as technical term with a very specific meaning. Never mind.

[-] frog_reborn@mstdn.social 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

@Ulrich @rimu

Ok, but that's not the only use case for it. It's also used by spammers and abusers to make everyone else's lives worse and it's admins who have to bear the brunt of that.
So I think it's fair to give them the option to weigh the costs and benefits of allowing it and then either do or not do something about it.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This is just lazy discrimination and a deep disrespect for the privacy of your users. If you can't be bothered to actually admin a community properly then don't create a community.

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Go create your own then? It's a free service, you're not actually owed anything.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Go create your own then?

Don't want to.

you're not actually owed anything.

People in general are owed their privacy and anyone who admins a website owes that to them, but especially fediverse projects that are supposed to be an alternative to surveillance capitalism.

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 points 23 hours ago

You're not owed anything when you're using a free service offered by somebody else, at their personal expense and effort. Nobody's funding this shit, nobody's paying for this shit. Definitely not you. You're free to make suggestions, you're not free to demand stuff. Overly demanding and obnoxious users like you are why FOSS devs tend to suffer burnout and quit.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Yes I am. Everyone is owed their privacy.

I'd rather them quit if they can't be bothered to moderate the site.

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 points 21 hours ago

You can rather whatever you want. As I said, if you believe in it so much, put your money where your mouth is and host something better for the rest of us.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 21 hours ago

And as I said, I don't want to. Nor would it solve the problem.

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 points 21 hours ago

And as I said, I don't want to

I know. You just want to be a self righteous prick online blaming others who contribute when you don't.

Nor would it solve the problem.

Why wouldn't it? If this is as important an issue as you say it is, surely providing an alternative that meets it would allow others to use the better alternative?

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

You just want to be a self righteous prick

Being concerned for the privacy of people as a whole makes me a prick?

blaming others who contribute when you don't.

I don't know why you assume that I don't contribute?

Why wouldn't it?

Why would it? Is it going to wipe those sites off the internet? No? That's why. Those sites will still be there, discriminating against users who just want privacy on the internet. That's like saying Lemmy solves the problems that Reddit creates or Mastodon solves the problems of Xitter. Those problems still exist because people continue to choose to participate in those communities, against their own interests.

[-] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 day ago

Does this include people that use email aliases to keep the connections between accounts harder to make? I pay for this service so it's genuinely not a throw away account. Just a way to maintain some privacy.

[-] rimu@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I don't know which service you use or whether it is on the list. But if it's a paid service then it's probably not on the list. Things on the list are like https://10minutemail.com/ or https://www.guerrillamail.com/

You're free to maintain your privacy and admins are free to weigh the potential risk of accepting an application with a warning icon on it. I'm sure there will be plenty who ignore it.

[-] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

I appreciate the straightforward answer of you're not sure answer (no sarcasm) . I just want to make sure paranoid people like me can still participate and I keep their level of privacy

[-] rimu@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago
[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Every alias domain I have is on this list. Not cool.

[-] aramis87@fedia.io 11 points 1 day ago

Also a real human with a throwaway registration address!

[-] FundMECFSResearch 3 points 1 day ago

Same!

[-] ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

i don't have a dog in this race but i must say that this is quite the spectacular manner by which to throw the babies out with the bathwater!

[-] Tyoda@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

literally 1984!

[-] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago

Nice, Another powerful feature admins can use if they want.

this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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