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#1 2023-11-23 2:26 am
- DLipman
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- Registered: 2020-10-27
- Posts: 22
Email address variations considered the same actor
I have noticed email address name variations that are considered to be one entity. On numerous examples I have noticed the IP addresses are not coincidental. This could be explained by using a VPN to obfuscate their true GeoIP.
How does SFS know that they are not just coincidences but are the same actor?
Example:
MyFakeNameNZbz142@Domain.com
vs.
[ MyFakeName.NZ.bz1.4.2@Domain.com ]
Last edited by DLipman (2023-11-23 10:04 pm)
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#2 2023-11-23 2:54 am
- Alex Kemp
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- From: Nottingham, England
- Registered: 2009-12-02
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Re: Email address variations considered the same actor
It is part of the auto-concat for email addresses. Dots are auto-redacted by the email server, so also by SFS. There is actually no difference at the provider between those two addresses.
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#3 2023-11-23 6:26 am
- pedigree
- uıɐbɐ ʎɐqǝ ɯoɹɟ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ɐ buıʎnq ɹǝʌǝu ɯ,ı
- From: New Zealand
- Registered: 2008-04-16
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Re: Email address variations considered the same actor
some domains do this, notably gmail, and we handle that, treating user1@gmail.com and user.1@gmail.com as the same email address
Other domains dont support this and user1@domain.com and user.1@domain.com are two different users
post that you've found and we can add support for the domain if we're unaware of it.
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#4 2023-11-23 12:07 pm
- DLipman
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- Registered: 2020-10-27
- Posts: 22
Re: Email address variations considered the same actor
Dank Je
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#5 2023-11-23 12:30 pm
- DLipman
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- Registered: 2020-10-27
- Posts: 22
Re: Email address variations considered the same actor
Does the same go for the following?
x2ff3f@gmail.com
vs
x2ff3f+mw@gmail.com
NOTE: The above is altered but the two are derived from two that did have the same GeoIP locality.
Last edited by DLipman (2023-11-23 12:33 pm)
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#6 2023-11-23 3:16 pm
- Alex Kemp
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- From: Nottingham, England
- Registered: 2009-12-02
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Re: Email address variations considered the same actor
That is another, common feature.
First, remember that we are talking about the user-name part of the email address, and NOT the domain. So,
example = "user @ domain.tld"
user name = "user"
host name = "domain.tld" [domain (server) name]
Names for the different parts of the email address are governed by different RFCs.
There is a terrifying-long number of RFCs that govern email addresses, each adding-to or superseding each other. Here we go with a (much truncated) list from early to later (there are even more with (shudder) utf8 characters added):
• Wikipedia
rfc5322 details the address syntax on p18:
addr-spec = local-part "@" domain
The Wiki has the shortest detail at Local-Part. Make a particular note of:
printable characters !#$%&'*+-/=?^_`{|}~
All of the above is all well & good, and it all falls apart as soon as we take server-administrator practice into account. Many admins will only allow a-z + digits, as the most important example. They may then allow unlimited dots to be used, but all are removed when the username is saved on the server. The use of '+' is another example, since typically everything after the '+' is removed when finding the username, but the user is allowed to have multiple mailboxes named after the text that follows the '+'.
So, it is all far more complicated than you may think.
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#7 2023-11-23 3:19 pm
- DLipman
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- Registered: 2020-10-27
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Re: Email address variations considered the same actor
Yes, it s complicated. Thus I ask :-)
Xiexie
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