Spamgourmet

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The internet service spamgourmet has offered disposable email addresses since October 29, 2000, as protection against spam. The service is free, and is supported by donations and advertisements on the website.

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[edit] Functionality

If a user requires an email address, then he or she may simply specify a new spamgourmet address. The address specifies the number of messages to be sent to it (or uses a default), which are forwarded to the user's desired mail account, and then further messages to the address are deleted by the service. The service also allows users to reply to received messages without revealing their true email addresses. After the initial registration, users can theoretically never again visit the website. They merely need to specify new addresses which are created and expire automatically.

When an address is expired, the service does not "bounce" email addressed to it, but rather ignores the email, so that the sender has no indication that the transmission was not successful.

The service supports time expiring addresses, and allows users to maintain whitelists at the account and address level. To prevent third parties from arbitrarily creating new addresses, the service allows users to specify hidden patterns ("Watchwords" see below) that must be matched in order for a new address to be created. Regular expression matching is used for this function.

[edit] Structure of Addresses

Spamgourmet addresses are generally specified as follows:

  • (Prefix.)Word.(NumberOfMessages|ExpireDate.)UserName@spamgourmet.com

The Word can be any character string made of numbers and letters. If one or more special code words ("Watchwords") was specified by the user, then the Word must contain one of them. Next, the user may specify the NumberOfMessages or the ExpireDate. The NumberOfMessages determines how many messages will be forwarded through the address, and may be omitted, for the default number (normally 3). The number may be 1 to 20 or another word, the first letter of which will determine the number of messages by its position in the alphabet. If the user specifies an ExpireDate in the form of YYYY-MM-DD, then the address will stay active and forward all email until the date is reached.

The Prefix is optional and normally not necessary. The UserName is what was specified by the user during registration. Watchwords, which are not a formal part of the address, but must appear somehow in the Word for new addresses, are also optional. Both of these options are configurable on the website.

[edit] Applications, Issues

Typical applications for such addresses are forums, software registrations, newsletters and the like. Issues may arise in the situations where spamgourmet ignores email at expiration of the address without comment. Also, the service should not be used for important correspondence. The lack of errors sent back to senders for undelivered messages is a significant departure from what is normally expected of the email infrastructure.

Since the service has over time achieved some notoriety, spamgourmet addresses are not accepted by some Internet services, normally those which finance themselves by the sales of email addresses. In addition numerous Internet forums with registration obligations prevent the use of spamgourmet addresses, in order to prevent the registration of fake accounts. As with other disposable email services, spamgourmet provides alternative domains for use by its users, some published, and others unpublished.

[edit] Open Source

The software from spamgourmet is open source and interested users may obtain the source code on request. It is also available on SourceForge. While the code is available in its most current state from the CVS repository, the spamgourmet team has not made a formal release of the code in several years.

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