Disposable throw-away e-mail accounts

Your e-mail address is associated with a lot of legitimate services that you want information from.

It can be very annoying then when you come across a dodgy looking site asking for your details in order to access an article or login. There is often no way of you knowing what they will do with your e-mail address after your hand it over.

Even if they don’t sell it onto a 3^rd party they might plan on sending daily/weekly/monthly updates about services and offers you don’t care about.

This is where disposable e-mails come into play. Over the last few years several services have been created which allow you to sign up to websites using quick and easy fake e-mail accounts. Both protecting your privacy and keeping your e-mail account free of spam.

Some of the popular ones are:

Guerrilla Mail – Has been around for a few years, allows you to choose a fake e-mail address from up to 9 domains and keeps your e-mail for an hour before deleting it.

Guerilla Mail fake inbox – free disposable inbox

10 Minute Mail – Creates a fake inbox that lasts 10 minutes (you have an option to extend it for 10 minute chunks if needed) This one is best for services you only want to sign into once.

10 minute mail fake inbox – free disposable e-mail service

Fake Inbox – Creates a fake inbox that lasts 1 hour.

Fake inbox – free fake inbox service

All the above services are simple to use and take a couple of seconds to generate an inbox for you to use for verification. Just remember not to use them for services you may want access to in the future as once they are gone, you cannot get them back.

How do I use a disposable e-mail service?

As an example we’ll take 10 minute mail and go through the process

1. You come across a website which requires an e-mail address to login. You don’t fully trust the site to not sell your details onto 3rd parties or you suspect they may start bombarding you with offers via e-mail.
2. Visit 10 minute mail and copy the e-mail address it is showing on the screen
3. Use this address to sign up to the website you want access to
4. go back to the 10 minute mail page and wait for the verification e-mail to arrive. Click any verification link given and enjoy using your verified account on the new website.
5. Forget about your fake e-mail address, it will be deleted in 10 minutes.

 

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What is EXIF data?

EXIF stands for “Exchangeable Image File Format” and is extra data that is attached to any photo taken with a modern camera or smart phone. The data isn’t visible by looking at the picture itself but requires extra software to read it.

It mostly contains information about the camera/phone used to take the photo and what settings were used such as shutter speed, date, exposure mode. The data is useful to photographers who need to know how a specific picture was generated.

How do I see it?

If using Windows you can right click on a photograph and select “Properties”, the “Details” tab should then show you the EXIF data from the photo:

EXIF Data viewable from Windows

There are also various free pieces of software which can be downloaded to show you the data. The top one from Google is Panda IEXIF2:

Panda Iexif 2 screenshot of Meta Data

There are also online services which allow you to upload a photo and check the EXIF data available:

• Jeffreys Exif Data
• ExifData.com

Why should I care?

The majority of the data is harmless. Most people shouldn’t be concerned about strangers finding out what generation iPhone they own by  looking up the details of a photo they have posted. The concerns arise when the photo is taken by a device connected to GPS as the users coordinates are then stored within the photo.

If the GPS EXIF data is available, someone can find out where in the world a photograph was taken.This can be very valuable data to someone trying to find out more information about you or your online identity.

If a stranger knows your name is John they have very little chance of finding you in real life, however if they know you are John who visits the same Costa coffee in a specific London street every Monday and posts a photo online they have a much better chance of finding out more.

How can I protect myself?

Luckily in 2016 most social media sites automatically remove EXIF data when you upload a photo. A quick check confirms that Twitter, Instagram and Facebook all remove the GPS data when it is uploaded.

If you are posting to a site which doesn’t strip the data you have the option to manually remove it yourself first.

Windows Exif data remove properties and personal information

The easiest way to do this in Windows is to right click on the file, select “properties”and under the “details” tab select ” choose “Remove Properties and Personal information”

There are also free online tools for removing the data before you share your photo:

• www.verexif.com
• ExifRemove

The Previously Mentioned Panda IEXIF2 has a feature to remove the data, however it is part of the premium version of their software.

 

First blog post

This blog is started to help inform people about the masses of information that is being stored online about them and their lives. There are countless stores of personal details about your Internet activities and not everyone is aware that they exist, or more importantly, how to get rid of them.

If you’ve got a job interview coming up and want to make sure potential employers don’t see anything that might harm your job prospects or are just someone who wants to keep their private life private this blog aims to build up a collections of guides for how to find out what the Internet knows about you and how to remove it.