Facebook PixelRegain normal use of your old over-spammed email by requiring a valid spam filter pass-through code
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Regain normal use of your old over-spammed email by requiring a valid spam filter pass-through code

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic Mar 25, 2022
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Regain the use of your old over-spammed email address by providing important senders with spam filter bypass codes. Everything else gets caught by the filter.
Why?
How it works
An email server/software that you can install on your own machine or use a 3rd party service that runs it for a monthly fee. You divert your old email address to that server. It takes care of spam filtering for you.
When you share your email address with someone, you also provide them with a pass-through code. They are instructed to include that code somewhere within the email (doesn't matter where). If the code is valid, their message gets through to your inbox.
The spam filter checks all incoming mail. If the code is included anywhere within it, the mail passes through to your inbox. Emails without a valid pass-through code are considered spam and you never see them.
Pass-through codes
  • You can generate different pass through codes whenever you need them.
  • You can make them temporary, so that they get revoked after some time. You would provide those to postal courier services, shops, etc.
  • If the codes get abused you can manually revoke them at anytime.
  • You can add a note that shows up with each code. This is useful so that you know whose code got stolen if it gets abused.
Expired codes
All emails that include an expired code get into your "expired code folder". This is almost spam, but you might periodically want to check the folder just in case something useful finds itself there.
Spam bypass permission
You can manually grant or revoke specific sender email addresses or domains so that they bypass the spam filter without needing a code.
spam
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General comments

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Shubhankar Kulkarni
Shubhankar Kulkarni3 years ago
I thought of this a few days ago and held off posting till I had a concrete idea. I agree that people can spam your email, especially when you are Elon Musk. It is frustrating to manually delete spam mail periodically. I agree with J. Nikola that creating passcodes is a job in itself. Once you release the passcode, you have no control over it. Sure, you can trace the person who released it, but do you want to spend additional time on that and then blocking that person too. Instead, what do you have control over? - You have control over your own inbox. Other than passcodes, what is another unique identity of the person you are communicating with? - their email ID. Then you only approve a few email IDs you want to communicate with on your end. Only these people can send you a mail. When others try to send you a mail, they receive a "mail delivery failure" notification.
Alternatively, you create a folder in your mail - "approved people". Mail from them lands in that folder. Others get delivered to the regular inbox. You may choose to completely ignore the regular inbox. You may visit it only if you have time - like when you are traveling. This way, you don't lose accidental important mail from people you have not approved. However, this is not feasible for someone like Elon Musk since he may never have spare time and the amount of mail he may receive exceeds the time by magnitudes. For Elon, the first option works best.
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Darko Savic
Darko Savic3 years ago
Shubhankar Kulkarni If you meet new people all the time at various events, they flood you with good stuff. You don't have the time to write down everyone's email.
Some you actually want to follow up with, but you don't know them yet so you can't trust them with your number. You also can't tell your secretary about every person you want to be able to get through to you. But you can give them all the same passcode you created specifically for that day or that event.
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Shubhankar Kulkarni
Shubhankar Kulkarni3 years ago
Darko Savic I understand the context. How about this: The passcode can be used only once. Once the person you gave the passcode to sends you a mail (acknowledging that you met), the passcode expires. Unless you reply to that person, s(he) cannot send you another mail. Once you reply, their passcode reactivates one more time. Based on your mail conversation, you can decide whether to add the person to your "approved" list or not. Once you approve a person, they don't need a passcode to send you a mail. Until then, they can send you only 1 mail per (your) reply.
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jnikola
jnikola3 years ago
Isn't this system discriminating against people who never contacted you before? If I had a question for you (because you are an expert in the field), but I never met you, I wouldn't be able to contact you, right? Or what if I change my passcode and forget to inform a person who contacts me often?
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Goran Radanovic
Goran Radanovic3 years ago
It's a good idea. When you create tasks such as sending codes and others inputting them, you're creating work. That's a simple task, but so many people don't even want to google a topic; they want a link directly to the information. That's the level of laziness that society has devolved to.
I'd recommend that the filter is automatic. Meaning, it sorts your contacts based on who you communicate with regularly and other factors. Let the filter do as much of the work as possible. Sure, the recipient will need to do some work, but minimise it as much as possible.
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