skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Why can't it be both sides' issue? I have a fairly uncommon first and last name, but I still get emails from the few folk who share my name combination, and I too have gotten sensitive information that I shouldn't have.

I cannot imagine the strangeness that must occur for folks with more common name combinations, and the idea that e.mail@gmail.com is the same as email@gmail.com just seems wrong to me. As far as I know, all other email services and providers treat such accounts as unique, and it's a strange situation with very limited benefit to the end user. While I have made use of "the dots don't matter", it's always been as a way of circumventing account restrictions. The casual convenience of "dots not mattering" seems like it's overshadowed by the difficulty this can cause (as evidenced with the article and my own experience)
People who struggle with food

Now you are mis-quoting.

It was fairly obvious what you were implying.
Is it a cliche if it's true? The difference between some slapped together product and one that feels decent is layer after layer of detail and polish. Long after you feel that you've put forth a reasonable effort, you still have half of the development left to go.
The money goes into people's bank accounts which already have many know-your-customer ID requirements. If also requiring Aadhaar for bank accounts was the limit of its mandate there would be a lot less outrage. The creeping, maximalist scope is what causes the increasing discomfort among people about this program.
Consider the British East India Conpany, which at its peak controlled a vast territory and had an army larger than the British government’s.

For smaller, more common examples, look at the history of company towns and union busting.

Companies these days exert control by manipulating the power of the state because the state usually won’t allow them to exert control more directly. Nothing says it must stay this way.
There was already https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/LeavingTheCloud
Agreed. Further along those lines, how does one reconcile the fact that Google still powers search for a number of other entities (including some libraries, academic institutions, etc)?

The "right to be forgotten", in that case, becomes the "right to erase history."
The thing is, the handling of the local part is MTA specific: you cannot just assume that different local parts correspond to different people because of aliases, +foo addresses and the fact that the administrator of the MTA can set whatever equivalence rules they like: I, for example, use - instead of + because so many internet forms reject + as a valid email character.

The only sane way to handle this is email-based confirmation.
This experience seems the same as most described in this very interesting and recent article about virtual embodiment [1]. Seems like we didn't need VR helmets to realize it after all.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/are-we-already...
I think to be sued, you would have to have had requests from handicap users to make accomodations, and then refuse.

And you would also have to have at least 15 full time employees to even be included in ADA requirements.
Just test dots sont matter, And really they don't matter
Posted many times but no discussion in the last few years, so this is ok. Previous discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7680696

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3176595

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1584501

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1741

That last id is awfully small. I wonder what other perennials have first ids less than that. Story of Mel perhaps? (Edit: nope.)
fa fa fa fa fa far better
That same 1% would then also lose 2/3rds of 10% of their net worth. Something to remember..

Politicians can hate on the wealth inequality, but it's a problem they themselves have created in part through QE.
Perhaps they realized their mistake but knew it was too late to change it without harming users who relied on the dot aliasing, and so only eliminated it for the newer system?
I have firstname.lastname (although now it just forwards to my FastMail vanity domain) and I've shut down new eBay and Amazon accounts plus received doctors appointments and even school lunch duty emails. Sometimes I respond, and I even forwarded a couple after figuring out one mis-user's real email (firstnamelastname0) when a cable company csr chat log was emailed, but they never responded so now I delete them all.
Why are dots special? I have several email addresses that all find my inbox. Heck, I've done this annoying identity split to myself by accident, creating two accounts with a product I only wanted one account for.
Fascinating article, thanks for the info!

> The only clue in the screenshot above is that the interface says “to james.hfisher”, instead of “to me”.

I just tested it, and I'm not even getting that clue. It says "to me", and it's only when I click on the little arrow that it says "(Yes, this is you.) Learn more". But you'd have to be suspicious in the first place to click the arrow...

I find this to be a very poor idea indeed, and hiding the clue is poor design to boot.
S/he probably meant socialist. Most of the people commenting don't know the difference.
Sri Lanka Blocked FB: When Anti-Muslim Violence Goes Viral
Musk warns A.I. could create an immortal dictator from which we can never escape
Reality a simulation? It's more likely than you might think, scientist argues
They're both issues, I agree there, but I think Netflix's screwup is larger here.

Lack of validation means that Netflix is emailing someone asking them to pay for something, who may be totally different than the person getting that thing.
I'm now in complete control of someone else’s commercial business hvac account because of precisely this problem.

But that has absolutely nothing to do with the dots. Indeed, almost every comment about this has nothing to do with the dots, including the submission.

Someone entered the wrong email address, and in the process got yours. It isn't like the dotted or undotted one is legitimately theirs -- it can't possibly be -- but that they forgot a middle initial or something of the sort.

I've written about this before-

https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2016/04/08/email-addresses...

-but the issue is with email itself, and the notion that once someone enters an email address it is authoritative. Like you I get a tonne of email for other people. I get travel tickets. I get room reward points. I get calendar events for car service in England. The dots aren't the reason.
They do. The author reset the password to gain access.
Well, you stated a claim that seems quite outlandish. Then you edit and question down-voters if they can "seriously" prove you wrong? Unless it's well-known fact or something agreed on by everyone, making such a bold statement would require you to prove your case. Not the other way around.
The USSR more resembled state capitalism than socialism. Especially if one holds that socialism is a form of government which aims at the improvement of material conditions of workers, and more worker management etc.

See Chomsky: Soviet Union vs Socialism

https://chomsky.info/1986____/
I agree with the conclusion because for years I’ve gotten bills for this guy who has a middle initial different from me. Sometimes people put in the wrong email. For him it still works but I get all of his billing etc. Turning off dots would make their emails go away and his account more secured.
The choice of opting out only exists where competition exists. Without a government to keep corporations in check, your ability to opt out would evaporate.
If you have a bug in a system, do you fix it at the source, or do you fix it at all the leaves? Netflix might be wrong here, but fixing it at Netflix doesn't make the problem go away. Fix the problem once (GMail) and never ever have to deal with it again.
At least three people have successfully created a Netflix account with my gmail address, written in exactly the same way I would normally write it: Jessica in 2012, John in 2013, and Jen in 2017. The first two somehow managed to recover and change the email address, the last one never did. (So maybe it's now finally blocked off from further registrations.)

If any of them had shared my name, the effect would have been just the same as in your case despite there being no canonicalization issues. Likewise would you really have been suspicious about seeing the notification come in for e.g. jamesfisher+netflix@gmail.com? Who can remember exactly what services they used a +something for?

No. This hole is totally on Netflix. It's a total shitshow, especially for a company that loves to brag so much about how they only hire the best technical people. No. Either they don't hire the best, or they let some kind of piece of growth hackers actually run the show.
As someone who commonly has other people mistakenly use my email when signing up for things, I 100% blame the service (Netflix) for this. This is only done as a way for them to increase signups/revenue and the fact that so few services require verification is why people don't realize they are using an email that isn't theirs for years.

Getting rid of dots only solves one tiny portion of this problem which would be completely solved if Netflix and others required verification. Gmail cannot stop people from using my email address to sign up for things, but Nextlix et al. can do that and protect their users privacy and personal info with one single email.

A better example is that a few years ago Turbo Tax emailed me personal details and gave me access to someone else's taxes because they didn't require verification. That is insane (and I believe/hope was since fixed)!
The troubling aspect of it aside, a policy like that would result in a net negative for everyone else. Global industries rely on poverty to guarantee an abundance of low-paid (or not paid at all) workers. In their absence, they'd either need to be replaced by bringing wealthy people into poverty, or we'd have to brace for an economic upheaval as traditional industries are disrupted (which would likely also create poverty).
Agreed that that needs to be the primary focus...however (you knew there was going to be a "however"):

Income and wealth inequality have reached pretty ridiculous levels, and noting that as a problem is not "bemoaning" people their (well-earned) wealth. A lot of that is not money earned by advancing society, a lot of is extractive/rent-seeking that is actually harmful (cough 2008 cough).

For example:

"The median American estimated that the CEO-to-worker pay-ratio was 30-to-1, and that ideally, it’d be 7-to-1. The reality? 354-to-1. "

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/economic-inequali...

Sorry, 354:1 is absolutely ludicrous, and I know a little bit of what I am talking about. My father was a high-ranking auto-executive, had actually been planned to succeed Carl Hahn as CEO of Volkswagen, but some funky politics got in the way of that. He never made that kind of money, and didn't want to. He thought it was obscene. And it is.

He also thought unions were a Good Thing™, and they are. If nothing else, they are selective pressure on companies to become better. And that's despite having that belief tested to the limit, because at VW the unions pretty much run the place.

So yes, envy is not a good thing, but noting that CEO pay is ridiculous, that banker's bonuses need to be reined in lest we all suffer the consequences, again, and that inheritance tax is not the devil is not "bemoaning".
*At any given time

You could have a contrived round robin system where 100% of people eventually end up with 100% of the wealth.
More pictures: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/skyknit-the-collect...
We lack universal healthcare in this country because the value system shared by approximately half of voters rejects it. This is not Elites vs. The People. Conservativism is a real thing that vast numbers of voters really believe in. Curtailing the power of elites sounds great, but what you are actually talking about is curtailing the power of vast swaths of the population.
As somebody who has multiple people who aren't me registering accounts to variations of my email address:

Companies who do not send "you've created an account! Click here if you didn't!" emails can die in a fire.
Still using the 640 as my primary phone for the exact same reasons and really can't complain. Picked up a few of them when they were giving them away practically for free, simply because of the quality and sturdiness of the device - and the fact that I seem to rough or incapable of keeping nice and expensive device in proper operating condition. It has pretty much all the apps that I would need, with the one exceptions, as someone noted in another comment, some of the banking apps. Funny enough, for that problem I keep an old android phone around to use in wifi mode. I do get a bit of crap when someone notices it is a windows pone, but hey, it is a good conversation starter over a few pints.
My issue with doing that is that the other person will never get help. They’ll just say “oh my emails keep getting lost”, but if google would bounce them, then hopefully one of these services would notify the person that that isn’t their email. Instead of them happily continuing to send it all to me.
Your post comes off as pretty tone deaf. Can you see it as a possibility that maybe you deserved to be let go?
The malicious sharer could modify the rule to not only remove the "+site" part but remove all the dots. Then, your trick is useless.

They might realize the "+site" and not the dots, but your point was about ability not awareness. ;)
Kibbutzism was less authoritarian, than you can expect from communism. I think it was because people always had a choice to leave.
Have never thought about this vector, good to learn. Doesn’t the “+” matter too? You can sign up with <victim>+<anything>@gmail.com...
Actual tax rates as a percentage of total income are remarkably flat in the US. It is commonly stated that the rich pay almost everything, but this is done by examining only the federal income tax and ignoring all the other taxes we pay.
Also while we're on dots, android has troubles with them, it suggests yo...ur.na..me.......@gmail.com and other variations on that theme. It's alright though, that's the kind of error that's so bad it's good.
China managed to virtually eliminate poverty from the 70’s to today. I think Africa and Latin America can do the same, they have the resources.
> I am not off by an order of magnitude, I know exactly how big they are.

Your post implied a total of 200-400gb, the real number is 10x that (otherwise known as “order of magnitude”). I’m not disputing your knowledge or experience, but the post as written has issues.
But you can’t put the cat back in the bag. People have used the system to sign up for multiple emails at multiple sites, expecting them to go to the same inbox.

I suppose you could solve the problem by grandfathering all existing aliases and whitelisting delivery of only those that received at least one email before the policy change. And also continuing to forbid registration of any aliases.
This is true of gmail accounts as well. If you signed up with first.last you always must login with first.last.

The real issue is that old account names are actually case sensitive too. Starting a few years ago Google normalized all account creation to lowercase, but existing case sensitive accounts remain. We implemented OAuth, normalizing accounts to lowercase in our db and everything was fine for years until we ran across a user who's account legit was FirstLast@ and would only auth that way.
Capitalism works fine, the only 'flaw' I think it has is that excessive capital can compound way too fast.

If you have $10m, and you invest that really really really well, you might be making 10 to 30% on that capital. Maybe more if you're an entrepreneur investing strategically. That's fine.

But let's say you're worth $1bn, and you compound at 10% per year.. you're making money hand over fist. Add smart use of debt to that, and that's probably too much rent seeking to be healthy.

Basically, once you pass a few 100 million, I think it gets really unfair. Below.. it doesn't really matter. No one will live in poverty because someone owns $100m -- it's meaningless in the grand scheme of things. But wealth is a snowball that doesn't grow fast enough on the low end, and too fast on the high end.

The only way to fix that would probably be a global wealth tax, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
I can't blame Kubrick for cutting all the voice-overs, which probably would have made the movie unbearable to watch. At the same time, it's maddening in its ambiguity. Seeing it as a product of this enormous gulf between creative approaches explains a lot.
Oddly a friend has an email that’s first.middle initial.last. I just tried without dots and it got bounced.
I usually find a lot more serious bugs in quick and dirty scripts, than in big systems, regardless of language. (Naturally, big systems have already survived the small PoC phase, plus usually big things are viewed as complex, whereas small scripts are dangerously innocent looking.) So in that way things like Ammonite (easy scripting using Scala) seem very useful - even if the runtime requirements are a lot heavier, than using bash (or python).

Furthermore, usually development uses type system as a tool, so it'd be hard to add typing when it's done. (I mean, usually functional doneness is checked or "asserted" in a large part through types, and unit/integration tests help with the rest.) So in this sense typing doesn't add more development time. It just makes problems a lot more explicit, so you know you're not done yet.
There should be an account creation email and another for a payment method being added. A lot of sites nag you to verify email but never force it.
So the bank was able to fulfill KYC requirements for someone who qualifies for a below the poverty level scheme?

Lack of papers is what Aadhaar is supposed to cure.

You are passing the identity buck. These people are so poor they live their whole lives without a solid roof over their head.

They don't have a birth certificate, a driver's license, a passport. The mere mention of these documents is somewhat of a cruel joke in their economic context.

They would have to give up a significant part of the benefits to middlemen in the old system.

(edited).
Or you could make sure vendors follow RFC2822.

Now admittedly its dense to read, but the two sections that are relevant are;

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2822#section-3.2.4
&
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2822#section-3.4.1

3.2.4 explains what a dot-atom can be made up of
3.4.1 explains what can be accepted in the make up of an address.

I'll always prefer vendors operating within spec even if the spec is a dense as fuck.
Thinking about this a bit more, I believe that there is another problem with how account creation is done.

In general we do it in two steps:

1. User detail and password

2. E-mail confirmation

Instead, if we did

1. User details but NOT password

2. E-mail confirmation and subsequently entering the password on the page that was sent via e-mail.

Actually, I think the most optimal would be

1. Enter e-mail address only

2. E-mail confirmation and entering all details

This would simultaneously protect the person that initated account creation and the owner of the e-mail address from one-another.
They're still showing you advertisements. You (or your eyeballs) are still the product to advertisers. Not tracking you doesn't somehow negate that.
The verification email too is a phishing attempt, as it gets delivered to wrong person. All it takes is just a click.
You could actually design your organization to find the best fit for each member of the team. Hire based on differing skills and approach, instead of dismissing them as "not a cultural fit".

When the 'norm' is defined as 'just like the rest of us' is when you get into trouble.
Same thing happened to me with my original gmail address. So much spam before google was really good at filtering it. Had to change address to include my area code, and of course I don't live there anymore.

I don't understand this though, how do they think they have an email address if they were never able to create it or sign into it? I think more likely they forgot the number at the end or something like that.
Download Statistics of IntellliJ plugin
More on the doc they reference: https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/article/DO-YOU-TRUST-THI...
> Actually, the blame lies with Gmail, and specifically Gmail’s “dots don’t matter” feature.

Totally wrong.

Dots don't matter is a great way to filter your messages without giving an obvious filter. An example...

I used to use first.last+yourcompany@gmail.com when I shopped online. But a lot of companies started blocking addresses that contained a "+" as an invalid address.

So now I use firstlast@gmail.com for general shopping, and first.last@gmail for friends and family. Lets me easily keep the same inbox, but filter all the unwanted crap.

Also, I like to rotate it around a bit -- since the lack of a dot doesn't really give me much insight... I will put the dot in based on which vendor I'm working with -- f.irstlas.t@gmail.com, for example -- then use my password manager to keep track of which vendor that goes to... another easy way to just block all crap I don't want from my inbox.
> it really doesn't matter what the top 1% are doing so long as the bottom half are seeing improved living conditions.

No. When inequality increases more people are necessarily below the average while a tiny minority gets way above average. The total wealth on the planet is divided among people. This is a basic economic fact.

As inequality increases people are rewarded more for "climbing the ladder". Competition and selfishness increase and cooperation and solidarity decreases.

> I think it's a natural human inclination to fixate

This is the "human nature fallacy".
Independent Contractors Treated as Employees in Tech (How to Prevent)?
I've noticed an increasing trend that companies and agencies will hire you as an independent consultant with the resulting lack of job security and benefits, but without the advantages of being an independent consultant.

Those advantages are around flexibility of hours, autonomy and of course higher pay.

Other than higher pay, I'm finding companies are loosey goosey in their hiring and treatment of contractors. In one recent SOW I came across via an agency (as a subcontractor to a contracting agency), upon arriving on the first day there suddenly was a 9 to 5 requirement such that the contractor gets reprimanded if they arrive at 9:05; moreover they have a 'manager' with tight control over the contractor's time, work and whereabouts during the work day.

To me this signifies an employee-employer relationship. And this is tech, not Uber drivers and the ambiguity around that.

If you are a tech consultant, what can you do, if anything, to avoid these situations? Sometimes you do not know until you begin the actual engagement.
I don't think there is a "fast path" to electronics. I didn't learn it overnight or in a year or even two years, I didn't learn it in a course or lecture, and neither did anybody I know who is a decent circuit designer.
The standard email verification patterns rely on the user clicking a link. I am not sure how that would have helped here.

Making users retype the email (instead of merely click on a link) might be better for exposing scams but requires more work on the user’s part.
It is a common mistake to characterize communism as collectivist. Marxist notion of communism is brutally individualistic.
Yes.

You could use Visual Studio Express.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2012/10/30/int...
It is weird that Netflix is allowing James to update Eve's payment information without logging into Eve's account. I think that is the actual security vulnerability.

On the other hand, e-mail verification should be done eventually to protect Eve from James to recovering her account in case Eve had a typo unintentionally.