Hi, I'm looking for a GMail contact. My wife is receiving someone else's emails. Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots). I don't know if this is a "feature" or a "bug", but either way, it's disquieting my wife. (Unhappy wife = unhappy life.) I view this as both non-RFC compliant behavior -and- a potential security risk. (Registering a GMail account as <someone><famous>@gmail.com (no dot) to capture email for <someone>.<famous>@gmail.com (dot) emails.) Please reply or email me directly at gtaylor (at) tnetconsulting (dot) net for additional details. Thank you and have a nice day. -- Grant. . . . unix || die P.S. Thus far messages to postmaster@gmail.com and abuse@gmail.com have gone unanswered.
My wife is receiving someone else's emails.
Welcome to the club.
Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
I don't know if this is a "feature" or a "bug", but either way, it's disquieting my wife. (Unhappy wife = unhappy life.)
Google is quite clear that they ignore dots in the mailbox name. johnqpublic@gmail == john.q.public@gmail == j.o.h.n.q.p.u.b.l.i.c@gmail
I view this as both non-RFC compliant behavior
RFC 5321 says that the interpretation of the local-part in the address is entirely up to the recipient host, so it's hard to imagine how this would not be RFC compliant. In practice, you can't fix stupid, so if your wife is feeling charitable, she can write back and tell people she's not the guy they're looking for, or else she can just report it all as spam. If she writes back, be prepared for people to insist that she must be the person they intended to write to. My gmail address is my name, and my name is fairly common, so I get all sorts of mail, including mail from a car dealer in Phoenix who was just sure that I wanted to buy a car from him even though I live in upstate New York. R's, John
On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 7:42 PM, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
My wife is receiving someone else's emails.
Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
If someone else thinks that the non-dotted email address is theirs, they are mistaken. This is a Gmail feature. Adding or removing dots makes no difference, other than changing readability. All versions of the email address are your wife's. Royce
I have the same issue and have had it for quite a while. I've met some great new friends because of it as well! -Mike On Sunday, September 28, 2014, Royce Williams <royce@techsolvency.com> wrote:
On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 7:42 PM, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net <javascript:;>> wrote:
My wife is receiving someone else's emails.
Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
If someone else thinks that the non-dotted email address is theirs, they are mistaken.
This is a Gmail feature. Adding or removing dots makes no difference, other than changing readability.
All versions of the email address are your wife's.
Royce
-- Mike Lyon 408-621-4826 mike.lyon@gmail.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/mlyon
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313?hl=en On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 8:42 PM, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
Hi,
I'm looking for a GMail contact.
My wife is receiving someone else's emails.
Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
I don't know if this is a "feature" or a "bug", but either way, it's disquieting my wife. (Unhappy wife = unhappy life.)
I view this as both non-RFC compliant behavior -and- a potential security risk. (Registering a GMail account as <someone><famous>@gmail.com (no dot) to capture email for <someone>.<famous>@gmail.com (dot) emails.)
Please reply or email me directly at gtaylor (at) tnetconsulting (dot) net for additional details.
Thank you and have a nice day.
-- Grant. . . . unix || die
P.S. Thus far messages to postmaster@gmail.com and abuse@gmail.com have gone unanswered.
Gmail will strip out periods. So it's not like there was some OTHER email address that your wife is suddenly getting. There is only her address. Dots or No Dots. Your wife's email address IS THE SAME as the dotless-version. On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 8:42 PM, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
Hi,
I'm looking for a GMail contact.
My wife is receiving someone else's emails.
Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
I don't know if this is a "feature" or a "bug", but either way, it's disquieting my wife. (Unhappy wife = unhappy life.)
I view this as both non-RFC compliant behavior -and- a potential security risk. (Registering a GMail account as <someone><famous>@gmail.com (no dot) to capture email for <someone>.<famous>@gmail.com (dot) emails.)
Please reply or email me directly at gtaylor (at) tnetconsulting (dot) net for additional details.
Thank you and have a nice day.
-- Grant. . . . unix || die
P.S. Thus far messages to postmaster@gmail.com and abuse@gmail.com have gone unanswered.
-- James Welcher
On Sun, 2014-09-28 at 22:42 -0500, Grant Taylor wrote:
I'm looking for a GMail contact. My wife is receiving someone else's emails. Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=addresses+with+dots+in+them Dots in GMail email addresses (before the at symbol of course) are syntactic sugar. "a.b.c@gmail.com" is the same as "abc@gmail.com". The sender in your wife's case just has the wrong email address for his/her desired recipient. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://twitter.com/kauer389 GPG fingerprint: EC67 61E2 C2F6 EB55 884B E129 072B 0AF0 72AA 9882 Old fingerprint: B862 FB15 FE96 4961 BC62 1A40 6239 1208 9865 5F9A
On 9/28/14, 10:42 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
My wife is receiving someone else's emails.
Okay ... so someone is sending to the incorrect email address that is a variant of my wife's GMail address. The real annoying part is that someone used my wife's email address (sans dots) as their email address on Match.com. So my wife is now receiving all the notifications that are meant to go to that other person.
Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
I don't know if this is a "feature" or a "bug", but either way, it's disquieting my wife. (Unhappy wife = unhappy life.)
*sigh* So this is a non-RFC compliant ""feature. *headshake* Does anyone have any Match.com contacts? I'll try going that route to get the messages stopped. (Including emailing postmaster@ and abuse@ to see if they can help.)
Please reply or email me directly at gtaylor (at) tnetconsulting (dot) net for additional details.
Thank you and have a nice day.
-- Grant. . . . unix || die
Set up a filter in the GMAIL console to match (pun intended) the "Match" emails and filter them into their own label. Then, hide that label. Don't delete them though. You might have a gold mine there. Think of the comedic relief you could provide others with " www.My-wife-keeps-getting-sent-pics-of-some-guys-tiny.org" You could post the emails, the profile names of the pervs, etc. Sort of like a 20/20 "To catch a..." only instead of predator, it would be perv. -- John Fraizer ΥΣΜΧ
You sure you wife did not sign up or Match.com and using this as a cover story? On Sep 29, 2014 6:17 AM, "John Fraizer" <john@op-sec.us> wrote:
Set up a filter in the GMAIL console to match (pun intended) the "Match" emails and filter them into their own label. Then, hide that label. Don't delete them though. You might have a gold mine there. Think of the comedic relief you could provide others with " www.My-wife-keeps-getting-sent-pics-of-some-guys-tiny.org" You could post the emails, the profile names of the pervs, etc. Sort of like a 20/20 "To catch a..." only instead of predator, it would be perv.
-- John Fraizer ΥΣΜΧ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Grant Taylor" <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net>
*sigh*
So this is a non-RFC compliant ""feature.
Nope. The LHS of an email address *is system defined*; no one outside of the destination mailserver is permitted to make any assumptions about it. RFC5322 3.4.1: """ The local-part portion is a domain-dependent string. In addresses, it is simply interpreted on the particular host as a name of a particular mailbox. """ Note that using a "real name" as an email address is Not The Best Idea: http://www.sendmail.com/sm/open_source/support/support_faq/faq_ver_8_issues/... Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 10:42:56PM -0500, Grant Taylor wrote:
Specifically she is receiving emails for <first name><middle initial><last name>@gmail.com (no dots) when her email address is really <same first name>.<same middle initial>.<same last name>@gmail.com (dots).
I don't know if this is a "feature" or a "bug", but either way, it's disquieting my wife. (Unhappy wife = unhappy life.)
Have your wife log in while omitting the dots, using e.g. "janeqpublic" instead of "jane.q.public" as the username. She'll see there's only one account, and it's her's, and that someone just typed the wrong address. Most likely reason: gmail is so common that someone mistypes johnsmith@example.com as johnsmith@gmail.com, not paying attention to what they're doing. It happens. Nicolai
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 10:06 AM, Nicolai <nicolai-nanog@chocolatine.org> wrote:
Have your wife log in while omitting the dots, using e.g. "janeqpublic" instead of "jane.q.public" as the username. She'll see there's only one account, and it's her's, and that someone just typed the wrong address.
This is what I was going to suggest. Have your wife login to the match.com site (using the forgot password feature), and then just deactivate / delete the account. Or as other have pointed out, gmail filters with hidden labels or direct to spam also works great.
On 09/29/14 10:06, Nicolai wrote:
Most likely reason: gmail is so common that someone mistypes johnsmith@example.com as johnsmith@gmail.com, not paying attention to what they're doing. It happens.
More likely, I think, is that newbies think that email addresses already exist for everyone on the planet at firstlast@gmail.com, and they just give that when asked (maybe they think it's throwaway and never actually expect to get any email there). I'm in the same boat. It doesn't bother me all that much because gmail is not my primary mail service. I use it to store big stuff that's clogging the mail service I do pay for. In fact, it can be entertaining, as I get usernames and passwords for sites that this guy signed up for. He's also a poker player and has recently tried to enroll at an art college. The latter I could reply to and explain that their prospective student is an idiot and should not be accepted, but that's what will happen anyway if I don't say anything. -- Jeff Woolsey {woolsey,jlw}@{jlw,jxh}.com first.last@{gmail,jlw}.com Spum bad keming. Nature abhors a straight antenna, a clean lens, and unused storage capacity. "Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management "Card sorting, Joel." -me, re Solitaire
Related oddness: if you're British and a GMail user, you either got a gmail.com username before the lawsuit, or you got a googlemail.com between the lawsuit and the point when Google and the owner of the "gmail" trademark settled, or then you got a gmail.com again. Google chose to alias googlemail.com and gmail.com addresses so as to minimise the mess, but this doesn't stop people who have googlemail.com entering gmail.com (or vice versa) when they set up an account on www.somewebsi.te, because they are conditioned to use gmail.com/googlemail.com interchangeably, and then being baffled as to why firstname.lastname@googlemail.com (or vice versa)/password1234 doesn't work, because googlemail==gmail and anyway my address is really firstname.lastname@gmail.com (or googlemail) - look, I get email on it, it must be the right one :-) On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 12:17 AM, Jeff Woolsey <jlw@jlw.com> wrote:
On 09/29/14 10:06, Nicolai wrote:
Most likely reason: gmail is so common that someone mistypes johnsmith@example.com as johnsmith@gmail.com, not paying attention to what they're doing. It happens.
More likely, I think, is that newbies think that email addresses already exist for everyone on the planet at firstlast@gmail.com, and they just give that when asked (maybe they think it's throwaway and never actually expect to get any email there). I'm in the same boat. It doesn't bother me all that much because gmail is not my primary mail service. I use it to store big stuff that's clogging the mail service I do pay for. In fact, it can be entertaining, as I get usernames and passwords for sites that this guy signed up for. He's also a poker player and has recently tried to enroll at an art college. The latter I could reply to and explain that their prospective student is an idiot and should not be accepted, but that's what will happen anyway if I don't say anything.
-- Jeff Woolsey {woolsey,jlw}@{jlw,jxh}.com first.last@{gmail,jlw}.com Spum bad keming. Nature abhors a straight antenna, a clean lens, and unused storage capacity. "Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management "Card sorting, Joel." -me, re Solitaire
This probably also effected German users. On Sep 30, 2014 6:32 PM, "Alexander Harrowell" <a.harrowell@gmail.com> wrote:
Related oddness: if you're British and a GMail user, you either got a gmail.com username before the lawsuit, or you got a googlemail.com between the lawsuit and the point when Google and the owner of the "gmail" trademark settled, or then you got a gmail.com again.
Google chose to alias googlemail.com and gmail.com addresses so as to minimise the mess, but this doesn't stop people who have googlemail.com entering gmail.com (or vice versa) when they set up an account on www.somewebsi.te, because they are conditioned to use gmail.com/googlemail.com interchangeably, and then being baffled as to why firstname.lastname@googlemail.com (or vice versa)/password1234 doesn't work, because googlemail==gmail and anyway my address is really firstname.lastname@gmail.com (or googlemail) - look, I get email on it, it must be the right one :-)
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 12:17 AM, Jeff Woolsey <jlw@jlw.com> wrote:
On 09/29/14 10:06, Nicolai wrote:
Most likely reason: gmail is so common that someone mistypes johnsmith@example.com as johnsmith@gmail.com, not paying attention to
what
they're doing. It happens.
More likely, I think, is that newbies think that email addresses already exist for everyone on the planet at firstlast@gmail.com, and they just give that when asked (maybe they think it's throwaway and never actually expect to get any email there). I'm in the same boat. It doesn't bother me all that much because gmail is not my primary mail service. I use it to store big stuff that's clogging the mail service I do pay for. In fact, it can be entertaining, as I get usernames and passwords for sites that this guy signed up for. He's also a poker player and has recently tried to enroll at an art college. The latter I could reply to and explain that their prospective student is an idiot and should not be accepted, but that's what will happen anyway if I don't say anything.
-- Jeff Woolsey {woolsey,jlw}@{jlw,jxh}.com first.last@{gmail,jlw}.com Spum bad keming. Nature abhors a straight antenna, a clean lens, and unused storage capacity. "Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management "Card sorting, Joel." -me, re Solitaire
participants (16)
-
Alexander Harrowell -
Bacon Zombie -
Grant Taylor -
James Welcher -
Jay Ashworth -
Jeff Woolsey -
John Fraizer -
John Levine -
Karl Auer -
Matthew Petach -
Mike Lyon -
Nicolai -
Philip -
Royce Williams -
ryanL -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu