Gmail Mis.delivered?

An anonymous reader writes "Google doesn't make many mistakes but when it does, boy, are they doozies! The latest is that Gmail doesn't care about periods in usernames. So mail sent to anonymous.coward@gmail.com is also delivered to anonymouscoward@gmail.com, even though these are two separate mail accounts. Google admits Gmail doesn't see periods, but no word on a fix yet." Update: As may users have pointed out Ars has since corrected the story, stating that the original submitter was mistaken and the email was just improperly addressed.

Comments

Google is Sexist!

[biocute]

I can't believe Google is disrespecting users with periods.

Since there is no word on a fix yet, it would be interesting if Microsoft rolls out a 3rd party patch which warns Gmail users when the recipient email address has periods in it.

Re:Google is Sexist!

[Anonymous Coward]

Since there is no word on a fix yet, it would be interesting if Microsoft rolls out a 3rd party patch which warns Gmail users when the recipient email address has periods in it.

There is no word for a fix, because there is no problem. The story is utter bunk, and has been updated to show that.

As for Microsoft rolling out a third party patch - yeah right - Microsoft aren't capable of rolling out their own patches quickly enough - I doubt they would be able to move as quickly as google in the event of a real vulnerability.

Re:Google is Sexist!

[caffeinemessiah]

Since there is no word on a fix yet, it would be interesting if Microsoft rolls out a 3rd party patch which warns Gmail users when the recipient email address has periods in it.

I've said this before on /., but perhaps you should really put down the bong. Nobody really needs periods in their email address if they can fill out an SMTP "From" line properly. Your period-less email address can be the hash key and the plaintext value you put in quotes before the address would be the value. So nobody who didn't want to send you email would care (because they could see your real name), and those who did could just hit reply.

Re:Google is Sexist!

[iwsnet]

I wonder how long GMail will stay in Beta. It's been almost 2 years since it was introduced and still not open to all, unless you have a cell phone or get referred.

Re:Google is Sexist!

[saskboy]

What does Google being the sexiest search engine have to do with Gmail? Oh, I kinda mis.read that.

Re:Google is Sexist!

[Elad Alon]

Look, I respect the effort, and recognize that the current result is leaps and bounds beyond anything I'm capable of producing at this time, both in terms of know-how and determination, but - and this was the entire point - the game is not yet ready. Not for beta, not for less. Also, mind you, the last time I tried it, it was much worse. I clicked it again after posting my message, and it has improved significantly... but it's still not ready. Maybe I'm just an idiot, I don't know, but the game I saw there the previous time let you progress only by sticking around long enough and collecting the daily bonus twenty dollars for voting for the game again and again. With anything else - the more you toiled, the worse off you were.

Re:Google is Sexist!

[abandonment]

I have no idea what the author was meaning by this - but have you not been out of the house recently perhaps? The average 3 story billboard for 'insert company here' seems to be getting closer and closer to this description with every new ad campaign. Models keep getting younger and younger and the ads get sleezier and sleezier.

Most of the time it is almost impossible to tell what is being sold by 'x' ad in the first place - jean companies with ads that have no jeans in them at all (perhaps in a pile on the floor) among other things.

There was an interesting blog about this subject recently:

http://www.skidmore.edu/salmagundi/148-149/Sleeper .htm

Shame really

[LiquidCoooled]

This couldv been a really neat feature.
I could signup a generic slashdot@gmail.com type account and then pass around multiple variations to different sites.
Depending upon the variation received I could determine which site leaked my mail.

I think the only way to rectify this is to start accounting for the period.
The cat is out of the bag so to speak.

Re:Shame really

[StonedRat]

Gmail already has this feature if you own slashdot@gmail.com you can also use slashdot+anything@gmail.com

Re:Shame really

[MooUK]

This is already a feature, as remrked above. Also, this is available elsewhere, most notably by using spamgourmet. (www.spamgourmet.com)

I find it very useful.

Re:Shame really

[thsths]

> if you own slashdot@gmail.com you can also use slashdot+anything@gmail.com

Sure, sendmail style subaddressing. This can be convenient for mailing lists, but you have to watch the discrepancy between your Sender address and the subscribed address.

On the plus side (however you see it), most Microsoft products seem to be unable to handle the + in email addresses. So you wont get many emails from Microsoft systems. (I wonder whether that also goes for SPAM?)

Re:Shame really

[comcn]

The '.' character in an email address violates RFC, but no one seems to really care.

er, no. Only that if you want to begin or end the local part with a ".", then you have to quote the local part. i.e. some.body@domain.example is fine, but .somebody@domain.example must be stated as ".somebody"@domain.example

RFC 2822, 3.4.1 "Addr-spec specification" (italics mine):

An addr-spec is a specific Internet identifier that contains a locally interpreted string followed by the at-sign character ("@", ASCII value 64) followed by an Internet domain. The locally interpreted string is either a quoted-string or a dot-atom. If the string can be represented as a dot-atom (that is, it contains no characters other than atext characters or "." surrounded by atext characters), then the dot-atom form SHOULD be used and the quoted-string form SHOULD NOT be used. Comments and folding white space SHOULD NOT be used around the "@" in the addr-spec.

Re:Shame really

[AngryNick]

I could signup a generic slashdot@gmail.com type account and then pass around multiple variations to different sites. Depending upon the variation received I could determine which site leaked my mail.

I'm off topic, but several years ago a friend setup a catch all for my domain name so that "anything@mydomain.com" comes to the same address.

I've been doing what you described and have made one major observation: my friends and family are spreading my email address more than any of the websites I sign up with. People get infected and send my email address to other people, who then get infected and send my address to blah, blah blah.

The only other major sources of spam are my Whois entries (tons from this one), the vendors that scanned my badge at MS TechEd 2001 (that address gets numerous solicitations for drugs that promise to correct male "software" problems), and a religious conference (they're email db appears to have been hacked by very dedicated phishers who favor CitiBank and SunTrust.) The catch all is also handy for controlling access to your online banking and vendor accounts; I use a dedicated address for each bank or merchant and can easily tell from the TO: address when something isn't right.

Re:Shame really

[daikokatana]

my friends and family are spreading my email address more than any of the websites I sign up with

I've noticed this myself. A lot of people I know come to me to get their computers cleaned (spyware, adware, you name it) and see me as some sort of helpdesk.

They send me an email, asking me for help, and when I reply they put me on their "send funny mails to" list, thinking they are doing me a favor.

So one helpful mail from me, and I am getting emails from all over the place. That'll teach me.

Nowadays, I just use a Yahoo! account for those mails, so my main inbox remains clean.

Re:Shame really

[SeaFox]

This couldv been a really neat feature.
I could signup a generic slashdot@gmail.com type account and then pass around multiple variations to different sites.
Depending upon the variation received I could determine which site leaked my mail.

I see it more as a huge security flaw. If I knew someone with a gmail address I could spy on them by signing up for an account with the same username with a period in it. All mail sent to them would come to me too.

Re:Shame really

[SteveAyre]

No. It's strips all email addresses of periods *then* checks whether it exists/which inbox to route mail to.

If something@gmail.com you can't create some.thing@gmail.com to spy on them because it strips it of periods and then finds the email address already exists.

Re:Shame really

[Craig Ringer]

It's a very handy feature - plus-addressing is supported by several UNIX MTAs and MDAs, and has been for some time. I've been using it with Cyrus IMAPd at work rather heavily. Google has just adopted a little known but common mail feature, which is nice.

The utility of plus-addressing is limited by the fact that many list managers and other tools don't understand that username+mailbox@blah is the same user as user@blah , and most MUAs don't let you add an abitrary plus-addressed part to your From: address. Even so, plus-addressing combined with Sieve filtering is very handy for temporary addresses.

Re:Shame really

[mwvdlee]

Google is only missing a dot, you seem to be missing a lot more punctuation.

Seriously, I had to read that sentence a few times before I understood what you meant (or what I think you meant).

Re:Shame really

[Varun Soundararajan]

I had this problem... one guy added my email to his google group. my name was with periods (like a.coward@gmail.com), but he had added my email without period, which was some other name(acoward@gmail.com). I cudnt unsubscribe, when i login to google groups, it wud login as a.coward@gmail.com and i see a link to join the group. :(
I asked the owner of the group to unsubscribe me. He was kind enough to unsubscribe me. I thought that was something weird, but now i know its a bug. :)

    Do they give a google T-Shirt for those who find bugs?
=======
[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time. - K & R

Re:Shame really

[bram]

That's easy to do in gmail if you have to register a new account.

Just take whatever@gmail.com and create a filter that redirects all mail to whatever@gmail.com to your spam folder.

And then subscribe accounts in the form of whatever+bugtraq@gmail.com and whatever+optinpr0n@gmail.com.

Not two accounts

[rritterson]

From what I understand, it's not two seperate accounts (i.e. ab@gmail.com and a.b@gmail.com are only one account and you can't register both, and you get mail that comes to either).

In addition, you can use it as a feature to filter mail. (i.e. if I'm abcdefg@gmail.com I can give out abcd.efg@gmail.com to friends and abc.defg@gmail.com to random websites, then filter the incoming mail automatically).

Feature, not a bug, in my opinion.

Re:Not two accounts

[qbwiz]

That's the way it is now, but you used to be able to register both at the same time. I guess they fixed it now. I know that this is a problem, as I'm getting email for someone else who's got my email address without the dot in it.

Re:Not two accounts

[Thats_Pipe]

Actually, it is a bug because you can log into a.b@gmail.com but not ab@gmail.com (assuming they were created seperately and with different passwords.) It seems like the login server checks for the dots but the email sorting aspect of the servcie ignores the dots. Poor engineering on the part of Google.

Re:Not two accounts

[iphayd]

You can already use randomwebsitename+abcdefg@gmail.com. The plus sign is a deliminator that allows anything before it. You can then add rules based on plus sign included emails.

Re:Not two accounts

[__aaxwdb6741]

No, to do that, they have a separate feature.
youremail+123@gmail.com will deliver to youremail@gmail.com.
I think it allows up to three or five letters.

Re:Not two accounts

[bearclaw]

I have a period in my gmail email address and I just confirmed this. However, when you log into gmail, you still need to use the account with the period. I could not log into the non-period account with my period-account's password.

If that makes any sense.

Re:Not two accounts

[AndroidCat]

It's abcdefg+randomwebsitename@gmail.com where your mailbox is abcdefg@gmail.com. I've used that when signing up to some things, although it breaks some site's software.

Re:Not two accounts

[Quino]

No, they are definitely two separate accounts. I have a user.name@gmail account, and receive e-mail meant for the username@gmail account that someone else is using and sending e-mail from.

In fact, I originally wanted username@gmail, but that was taken so gmail suggested user.name which I took.

The weird thing is that I'm pretty sure I'm not receiving all of this guy's e-mail, since he runs a business and keeps an apparently loooong contact list of people he e-mails, and yet I receive e-mails obviously addressed to him 2 or 3 times a week only. I expect he actually receives many times this number of business-related e-mail.

I wonder how many of my e-mails he's received and read? hmmm this is scary, as I do receive bank statements, password change notifications to my bank, etc.

This is actually a pretty big deal, in fact! I wish it was as you describe (not separate accounts) since then it wouldn't matter much -- but I'm afraid this is sort of a big screwup on Google's part (and I just finished getting all inspired by that BBC clip on Google!)

Re:Not two accounts

[MikeFM]

Now we know why it's marked a beta. ;)

Re:Not two accounts

[Orkie]

I wonder if mail that is sent to the no-dot one is also sent to the dotted one. I seem to have got a bit of SPAM recently, but I don't think I've given out my e-mail address to anywhere new.

Re:Not two accounts

[non0score]

Yep. Just sent a piece of e-mail to my own gmail account, but without the period. I didn't get my own letter. I think Google basically patched the registration process after they found out about the bug, but not before some "duplicate" (identical accounts discounting the period) accounts were already made.

Re:Not two accounts

[Phylter]

I totally agree. As long as you can't sign up for a similar account with periods (and you can't) then there is no problem and it can be convenient.

Re:Not two accounts

[zhenga]

Say my email address I registered was hello.world@gmail.com. I indeed get the mail if it was sent to helloworld@gmail.com (without the dots). But the mail is put in the "All Mail" box, and doesnt show up in the "inbox".

Is there any way to automatically show it in the inbox or do I have to create filters for each possible combination?

Re:Not two accounts

[FuturePastNow]

This seems to be very inconsistent. Last night I sent an email to the non-period-dileneated version of my account, and I got it (i.e. I sent it to firstnamelastname and got it at firstname.lastname). I tried creating an account using the name without the period, and couldn't- which means Google's either fixed the security hole, or someone else grabbed the account. I haven't recieved anyone else's mail, but that doesn't mean anything. I really would like to know which it is.

Is it just the earliest Gmail users who can have overlapping logins? My account is only a year old.

Re:Not two accounts

[warrior_s]

>I know that this is a problem, as I'm getting email for someone else who's got my email address without the dot in it. Hmmm.. so you are the one having a dot in email address? That means all your mail is also being delivered to the other person who do not have dot in the address.

Re:Not two accounts

[syukton]

Ok, I just asked a friend of mine who uses gmail and this is the conversation:

me: you use gmail, right?
her: yep
me: is there a dot in the left half of your address?
her: yes
her: and i have had problems with that particular dot.
me: what kind of problems?
her: getting mail that is meant for someone with the same gmail address, only minus the dot
her: because apparently, when you create the account, and log in thereafter, gmail distinguishes between dot and no-dot
me: yeah, it seems to be a widespread problem.
her: but when it's actually directing mail, it does NOT distinguish.
her: which makes no goddamn sense
me: yeah, well. it is still in "beta"
her: well isn't that kindof a basic kind of thing? email getting to the proper address?....
me: dots aren't technically supported in the email specification.
her: well then why let two separate addresses be created, one with and one without a dot?
me: that's an excellent question. They don't appear to allow it anymore, but they may have at one point.

So the story may have been corrected, but the plot still thickens...

Re:Not two accounts

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

It also makes it really easy to automaticly prune off the spamtag when selling it on lists of emails. Only good for honest uses like mailinglists.

Re:Not two accounts

[profesor]

I thought this was happening to me, but now I think they are two separate accounts. I have 'matt.lastname@gmail.com'. I think the other person has 'matthewlastname@gmail.com', and some of his acquaintances occasionally send mail to 'mattlastname@gmail.com' instead of 'matthewlastname@gmail.com'.

Re:Not two accounts

[jrockway]

I get plenty of spam to the subaddresses (like "jon-nospam@jrock.us"). I've never gotten any SPAM in my main mailbox, though, so I don't think anyone's doing this yet. I have seen a few people send SPAM to "jon-@jrock.us" or "nospam@jrock.us", but that's fine since those aliases have no legitimate use. I auto-blacklist any senders to those addresses, as well as auto-reporting the SPAM to spamcop. Seems to be working fairly well.

Re:Not two accounts

[selfdiscipline]

I believe I have the same problem, but it is hard to figure on, since it could easily be a case of mistyped/written address.
I registered an address with a period, and I just sent an email to the same address with no period to see if I get a response.

Re:Not two accounts

[tommertron]

I think they used to allow usernames that differed in dots only as well. This happened to me, where I sent someone an email, but someone else got it, and their address differed only by a dot. Except that I know that I had the address correct (it was added when I invited him) so they must have allowed usernames differing by dots at one point. They only option I thought of is is my friend's account expired...

Contact me (tommertron at the mail service in question) if you want to collaborate on an answer. Maybe we could get a blog post resolving this up somewhere.

Re:Not two accounts

[Catcher80]

The way you use Gmail for filtering out spam and stuff is already there, and it isn't a period.

You just add a +whatever to your email address (catcher80+spam@gmail.com for example). it still goes to catcher80, but now I can add a filter that deletes mail sent to catcher80+spam@. It is a VERY good feature, I haven't tried it at yahoo or other places, but combined with Gmail's filter+labeling+archive system, it's very very VERY useful.

Re:Not two accounts

[volvolus]

You can already use randomwebsitename+abcdefg@gmail.com. The plus sign is a deliminator that allows anything before it. You can then add rules based on plus sign included emails.

Is this a bug or a technical feature allowing google.com to use these accounts to distribute targeted advertising?

Re:Not two accounts

[intelliot]

Since this has already been clarified in other comments, I hesitate to reply. But since the post was rated "Score:5, Informative", I feel an obligation to point out that it is COMPLETELY WRONG. This has been a feature of Gmail since April 2004, and it was worked as intended.

If you get email for someone else, it is not because there is a problem. It is due to an unrelated issue, most likely simple human error (a typo in the email address). To be clear, THERE IS NO TECHNICAL PROBLEM, no has there ever been. This story is completely false.

Re:What's wrong?

[Spazntwich]

cmdr.taco@gmail.com

c.m.d.r.t.a.c.o@gmail.com

cm.dr.taco@gmail.com

I think you get it.

What date is it?

[Incadenza]

Bloopers like this make me check the calender, sounds like perfect April 1st Slashdot news.

Re:What date is it?

[Art Tatum]

Yeah, except this one was actually believed for longer than 2.38 seconds.

Yep

[BitterAndDrunk]

I addressed this w/Gmail a long time ago. I have two first names (e.g. Mike Roger) and mikeroger@gmail.com was taken. . . so I grabbed mike.roger@gmail.com

It's a damn shame mikeroger doesn't have a racier life, it would be awesome.

Google's response, btw, was that I'd secured both mikeroger@gmail.com and mike.roger@gmail.com and could switch between the two as I wanted. Obviously, this is incorrect.

The bright side is I seem to have blown the original email user away w/volume; he used to receive about 1 email every 3 days as opposed to my 20-30 (not including spam).

The down-side is he subscribed to XM ENTERTAINMENT's porn newsletter.

Re:Yep

[bfdhud]

so uhm BaD. Can I have my email address back? I miss my newsletter.

Re:Yep

[rts008]

Heck of a way to meet new people! :)

Re:Yep

[strobexii]

The down-side is he subscribed to XM ENTERTAINMENT's porn newsletter.

Don't worry, I just got him back big time! I subscribed you to about a dozen porn newsletters. He'll be completely inundated with porn spam in no time! No need to thank me, helping other people is its own reward.

Re:Yep

[LiquidCoooled]

I think you are confusing the issue slightly.
Read the problem carefully:

You managed to register a dotted variation after being informed the nodot version wasn't available.

The article says that mail sent to any gmail account with dots is sent to the undotted version.
The fact you also get the mail is a coincidence.

You were only getting mails intended for the other person simply because the mailing user mistyped his address.
All mail sent to your dotted address is also going to his address, so the other mike was still getting mail and quite unaware of the problem.

The downside to this is you just admitted to slashdot that it was you (or someone sending it for you specifically) who signed up for XM's porn newsletter ;)

Re:Yep

[Vicsun]

You are a filthy liar, sir.

Either that or Gmail behaves differently with me. I had originally registered firstname.lastname@gmail.com but when I just tried registering firstnamelastname@gmail.com, fir.stnamelastname@gmail.com, and firstnamelast.name@gmail.com, it gave me an 'address already registered' error. Try it out for yourself.

I guess it's also possible that Google has recently corrected the flaw and it was indeed possible to register both firstnamelastname and firstname.lastname at some point. I want to believe though, so for now I'll just suspend my belief in your posts' veracity.

Re:Yep

[elmegil]

I guess it's also possible that Google has recently corrected the flaw

From what others have said here that seems the most likely circumstance.

Re:Yep

[starwed]

No, look at this blog post about the issue. It's from a while ago, and describes the behavior people are discussing. It's not a recent fix, it's been this way all along! (In other words, the "controversy" here is completely bogus.)

Re:Yep

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Yep. Verified this myself. my podcast e-mail address has dots in it. Sent one to it without the dots and it came to the one with the dots. Tried to sign in to the accounts without using the .'s and it did not work. Google need sot fix this. The story may have a correction, but it DOES happen.

Re:Yep

[OS24Ever]

It could be worse. You could travel to New York on business a lot. THere could be another person with the same name but without the dots. That person lives in new york, and has lots of friends visiting him.

Of course, theyre all talking about how they can't wait to hook up.

More power too him, except I don't swing that way. They're all guys, I'm into girls. Should be fun explaining that to the wife. I've replied to the first few that there seems to be a mistake but not sure what they think, because they won't respond. I've just started deleting them.

Awesome, I can steal email

[insomniac8400]

Just create an account with dots in with the same letters as the account you want to spy on and you will get all their email.

Re:Awesome, I can steal email

[insomniac8400]

Sorry, forgot sarcasm doesn't translate on the internet. Nice language by the way.

Update?

[Parham]

There is an update at the top of the article:

Update: Ryan Coleman has since admitted he was mistaken, and that the e-mails he received addressed to ryancolemand@gmail.com were misaddressed.

Re:Update?

[Esion Modnar]

So basicly, never mind? Nothing to see here, move along?

Re:Update?

[earnest murderer]

In other news, a gentleman by the name of Due Diligence was found dead on a downtown street, apparently trampled to death.

When asked about it Angry Mob (currently confined at digg.com) replied "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story".

Seriously, this was a pretty big fuckup regurgitating some random assholes blog entry without checking *anything*. I expect this at digg.com where inflamitory and baseless rule the day. Slashdot can claim to merely be a discussion of "news" and not necessarily journalism itself. Ars, I expected more.

Re:Update?

[Jesus_666]

Well, at least the thing about "bla.bla" being the same as "blabla" is true, I just confirmed it with my account.

Re:Update?

[Art Tatum]

Well, "Ars doesn't make many mistakes but when it does, boy, are they doozies!"

Identity theft?

[SuperDuG]

Since in its infinite wisdom most webservices allow password resets to happen via email. Wouldn't it just be a matter of time to find out soemone's email address and then have the "oops I lost my password" feature on a number of websites utilized?

I wonder how many slashdot accounts, internet domains, and amazon accounts are linked via an @gmail.com address.

This is most certainly not a "little" problem by any means...

Re:Identity theft?

[pinano]

What about wholesale account stealing? Apparently there is a feature where you can change the periods in your name to look however you wanted them... I will be back in about 10 minutes with further research results.

Re:Identity theft?

[pinano]

I have pinano@gmail.com as one of my e-mail addresses; I attempted to register pi.na.no@gmail.com and it told me it was not available. Apparently this problem has either been resolved, or it is intermittent.

Re:Identity theft?

[Anonymous Freak]

Already has happened. Two days ago, I got a set of username/password combos for a CHILDCARE website that isn't mine. I have xxx.yyy@gmail.com, it was sent to xxxyyy@gmail.com (addresses changed to protect the innocent.) This login information can be used to access billing information (according to the email.) If I was dishonest, I could do some VERY bad things with this info.

Old news!

[travail_jgd]

This has been known for a while in the user community. In fact, this tutorial is 18 months old, and demonstrates the "feature".

Re:What's wrong?

[Skater]

I have a friend from college that I met through a mistakenly delivered email. She was trying to send to someone with the email address like "rjm987@someotherschool.edu", but she accidentally put a space between the "m" and the "9", so the system delived it to one of my class accounts with the username "rjm". We became good friends and still email each other now and then, a decade later.

So, it can be a great way to meet new people!

It's a feature, not a bug (No, really)

[njord]

I don't see the problem with that, I thought it was common knowledge. The way I see it, how often is a period essential, or dangerous? I don't think there are many domains with say, joesmith@domain.com and joe.smith@domain.com pointing to different people. I see the period as a way of reducing typing errors.

Also, you can do things like this:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answe r=12096&topic=1564

I don't want to sound trollish, but this hardly sounds like story material to me.

njord

Re:It's a feature, not a bug (No, really)

[Hillman]

Is there a (simple) way to configure my mail server to do the same thing? I wouldn't have to configure aliases each time I want a throwaway email address...

Re:It's a feature, not a bug (No, really)

[comcn]

Depends what mail server you use... I have configured exim so that it will accept suffixes on e-mail addresses, provided that the folder exists already. That way to create a xxx-YYY@domain suffix, I just create the YYY folder in my maildir. Works nicely.

Re:It's a feature, not a bug (No, really)

[michaelconnor]

For about 4 months, I regularly received mail from students of a German Professor at a state school. The gmail adress was *.*@gmail. I would have let them know about the glitch sooner, but it I'll admit it was much too entertaining watching several of the students do their best to kiss up to the Prof every week or so. For some weird reason, it would just sort of brighten my day :)

Crap... Wildcards are a problem, too...

[bennomatic]

I was wondering why I get so much spam. My email address is *.*@gmail.com.

:-P

my email

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop posting my email address on Slashdot. Think of all the evil spammers!

Thanks,
A.C.

Old news

[RedWizzard]

This has been the case since day 1. The only problem is if Google has been allowing people to register addresses that differ only because of the position of periods. Certainly they generally don't - I've tried to register several variations of my gmail address without success. It looks like the case discussed in this article is a isolated incident.

Re:Old news

[Anonymous Freak]

The only problem is if Google has been allowing people to register addresses that differ only because of the position of periods.

They have. I have the address prius.driver@gmail.com, and someone else has priusdriver@gmail.com. I get some spam that is sent to 'priusdriver@gmail.com', and have once gotten legitimate messages (billing messages, with credit card information in them!)

Obviously, I don't use mine for sensitive information. But the other guy still does. (I have sent him/her/whatever messages warning him, but just yesterday I got an email with username/password combos for some secure website of his.

(The reason I'm posting my email address is so that if he's choosing to ignore my warnings, and he reads Slashdot, maybe he'll be more cautious now.)

Re:Old news

[Mr. Slippery]

I have the address prius.driver@gmail.com, and someone else has priusdriver@gmail.com.

Are you sure that someone else has this "other" address? From this discussion it looks like Gmail maps them to the same account. Getting spam is hardly surprising, especially with such a dictionary-attack bait as your addresses; the "legitimate messages" you got could well be phishing attempts, or simply e-mail addresses gotten wrong

Re:Old news

[Anonymous Freak]

Yes, I'm sure. They're sent to 'Dave'. I'm not Dave. There is obvious direct email to 'Dave', repeatedly. It's not a boo-boo from the sender. It's email going to the wrong place. I have yet to see one that is in reply to one Dave sent, so replies must go only to the right place.

It includes confidential information (web site admin usernames and passwords, in non-form-letters sent to 'Dave'.)

Re:Old news

[Quino]

to back you up, I'm in the exact same boat -- and of course I checked the "sent to" address carefully.

I have user.name@gmail, and receive e-mails sent to some other guy with the username@gmail account. It's not a typo, right there in the "to" field is the other e-mail address (without the period) and yet I'm receiving it.

The really weird thing is that it certainly appears that I'm not receiving all of his e-mail, just on occassion and sporadically.

This is all wrong

[Lanzaa]

The person made a mistake. He was getting someone elses mail for a different reason. You cannot make two account that are the same.

Here is his blog post saying he made the mistake.
http://fitrans.blogspot.com/2006/01/oops-formerly- found-in-my-inbox-odd.html

Fixed?

[broothal]

Uhm... I just tried this. It doesn't work - you can't register username if user.name is taken, nor can you register user.name if username is taken.

Re:Fixed?

[MooUK]

You cannot now. Apparently, it used to be possible. Presumably they got wind of what was happening and actually did something to prevent it getting worse.

Re:Fixed?

[cookedchicken]

Well, that may be the case NOW, but for a long time after gmail FIRST opened, like the first few months, a person could register blah@gmail.com while another seperate person could register bla.h@gmail.com. When bla.h@gmail.com could send out e-mail, reply's would go to blah@gmail. Account's created during this time period that had this problem have never been fixed -- and this situation has never been addressed by Google.

Re:Fixed?

[gabe824]

This has been fixed for at least the last 8 months. I noticed emails were arriving in my inbox from friends who had forgotten the period last May and did some playing around at that time, including trying to sign up for an account without the period and I couldn't. So that part has been fixed for some time. Apperently the question is whether accounts that were set up at the very beginning, where distinct acount exist with and without the dot have been dealt with.

aha!

[bazorg]

they turned evil! It had to happen!

Google is teh Sexist!

[TubeSteak]

can't believe Google is disrespecting users with periods.

Women have been disrespected for thousands of years.

Just the other day, I was overjoyed that Google was fighting for my rights, now I'm dissapointed to learn that they're not fighting for women's rights too.

I can only imagine what Condoleezza Rice & Hillary Clinton will have to say about this.

Re:Google is teh Sexist!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only imagine what Condoleezza Rice & Hillary Clinton will have to say about this.

Why do they care? They don't have periods.

Re:Google is teh Sexist!

[windex]

Oddly, they were not the ones who won throughout history.

I think the women are plotting something.

Re:Google is teh Sexist!

[McPierce]

Women have been disrespected for thousands of years.

It was John Lennon who said Woman Is The Nigger Of The World.

Wow.

[LeeTax0r]

This explains why I've been getting email from some guy telling me I'm his lab partner in some class and that I need to contact him to get info on the final assignment. I wrote to him, "Who do you think I am and what class are you talking about?". He says, "I'm Quincy. I set next to you in IST 326. We have an assignment due soon!" I say, "Uh. I don't think so, since I'm not in any IST program. Are you sure you have the right email?" The guy: "Yes, daviddunlap@gmail.com, right?" Me: "No, not at all. david.dunlap@gmail.com." I thought all this time that the guy just didn't know how to use email. Boy, was I wrong.

Re:Wow.

[caffeination]

These cases are so isolated compared to the overwhelming anecdotal evidence that this is a feature, as Google claims, that I'm pretty convinced that cases like yours are down to a mistake on the part of people emailing you. I'm even prepared to believe that more than one person could screw up over some email addresses, based on deep psychologically provoked typos.
This is mostly because I rely heavily on Gmail and I am desperately trying not to have a heart attack. For what it's worth, the moment I learned of this, I tried the potential "attack" on my most uniquely named account: caffeination.net@gmail.com, which I knew was unoccupied in any other form, and was blocked.
Where the uncertainty comes in is in the claims that in the early stages, this safeguard didnt work properly. I'm not an early-adopter... thank Intelligent Designer...

Re:Wow.

[svanstrom]

People get e-mailaddresses wrong, that's just life...

I've got a 3 character username @ hotmail.com (and msn), I get A LOT of e-mails simply because people make misstakes; not as many misstakes as spam, but still, misstakes have been made.

Re:Wow.

[MedManDC]

This has been happening to me, as well. I am j.y@gmail.com (not really) and someone else has jy@gmail.com. I occasionally get mail for him and I'm hoping is isn't getting my mail.

When Ryan Coleman makes a mistake, it's a doozy

[toby]

Not much better place to embarrass yourself than on the front page of /. ... :)

Sigh... This really is a FEATURE

[Anonymous Coward]

Headline here should be corrected; this isn't a huge gmail flaw; seasoned users know it as a feature.

Secret gmail feature #1: you can add and remove periods from your username with no change in mail routing. There is no collision with other accounts since only one account (stripped of periods) is allowed to exist.

Scret gmail feature #2: you can append a plus and any string to your account name and it will still be routed to you. Try creating filters by giving out your address this way: eg example+spam@gmail.com will be delivered to username 'example'

Re:Sigh... This really is a FEATURE

[Simon Garlick]

I wonder: the author of the source article, the editor of Ars Technica, the Slashdot editor who posted this... have any of them actually USED Gmail?

I can only assume the answer is no.

Re:Sigh... This really is a FEATURE

[wenchmagnet]

Right on... I've been using the "." feature for over a year now.

And I use the username+mailinglistname@gmail.com feature to subscribe to different lists and make it simpler to make filters though not all lists accept email addresses with a + in them.

Question is, if an account named username@gmail.com already exists, can you create an account named user.name@gmail.com ?

Re:Sigh... This really is a FEATURE

[DanaGoyette]

Everywhere I've tried the plus, it's said IINVALID ADDRESS (on ATI's contest, dealnews, and other such public things)

Re:Sigh... This really is a FEATURE

[NaDrew]

There is no collision with other accounts since only one account (stripped of periods) is allowed to exist.

Then please explain why I constantly get mail to my my.name@gmail.com account which was sent to myname@gmail.com... which is owned by someone else who shares my name? It is absolutely a problem.

This is not news and not rocket science

[jbarr]

This is absolutely not mis-delivery or a mistake on Google's part!

See Gmail's Help page on this at:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answe r=10313&query=dot&topic=0&type=f

(You may need to be logged into Gmail account to see this.)

Simply put, the period only matters when logging in. Gmail considers some.user@gmail.com and somuser@gmail.com as the same when delivering email, but if the account was oopened as some.user, then you have to use some.user as the login--someuser will not work. Send an email to some.user@gmail.com, somuser@gmail.com, or so.me.us.er@gmail.com, and it'll get delivered to the same account, but you will only be able to login as some.user@gmail.com

Google's intent was to cut down on addressing mistakes as well as spam.

From the user's perspective, actually a good thing because it means that you "lock in" similar addresses so some.user and someuser aren't two different accounts. It also means that the actual number of accounts is less because of this.

-Jim

http://gmailtips.com/

Re:This is not news and not rocket science

[slashdotmsiriv]

You cannot create a joesmith@gmail.com and a joe.smith@gmail.com account. Gmail was setup like this from the beginning. Those who report misaddressing are most likely wrong in identifying the source of misaddressing. For example, I am sure that what happens is that a user Joe joe.smith@gmail.com receives somebody else's emails . Joe investigates it and the sender of the emails tells him that he intended to send the emails to joesmith@gmail.com. Joe tells him that I am not joesmith, I am joe.smith! and thinks that the problem is solved. What really happened however, is that the sender should have simply addressed thes email to jo.smith@gmail.com or josmith@gmail.com. Just a typo, independent of the dot issue.

Re:This is not news and not rocket science

[dangitman]

Gmail considers some.user@gmail.com and somuser@gmail.com as the same when delivering email,

I understand the period thing, but why would Google want to eliminate the letter 'e'? That truly is evil. 'e' is a nice, friendly letter, that has never hurt anyone. What did 'e' do to Google to deserve this.

WAKE UP! DO NOT ALLOW GOOGLE TO COMMIT E-NOCIDE

Re:This is not news and not rocket science

[Goo.cc]

Thanks man. I am one of the people who have a period in their email address and I didn't even realize Google did this.

Re:This is not news and not rocket science

[jbarr]

You are correct. If you signed up as "joe.smith", then no other iteration of that will be assigned to another user.

In fact, this is a benefit to the user. If you sign up as joe.smith@gmail.com, and your friend doesn't remember the period and sends it to joesmith@gmail.com, you will still receive it--not so with most other email providers.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/

Re:This is not news and not rocket science

[sharkey]

Hmmm, I just tried it. My gmail address has a period in it, and I was able to login with and without the period.

Re:Crap... Wildcards are a problem, too...

[TubeSteak]

You get mail? I've signed up for tons of stuff and nobody sends anything to my $sys$@gmail.com account.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why.

Now my t-shirt makes sense!

[rfernand79]

I read your Email.

I am a liar.

[Vicsun]

What I said above is a complete and total lie. Instead of going by what other slashdot posters had posted (lies as well, apparently - who would've guessed?), I actually tried it out and it didn't work. The grandparent was correct. I couldn't register firstnamelastname@gmail.com when firstname.lastname@gmail.com was already registered.

I guess I should actually put a little effort in research before spouting unsubstantiated bullshit. Or I can just take note from the editors of a certain tech-oriented website and continue on my merry, non-reaserching way :)

Re:I am a liar.

[Ruleke]

Yep, but some experimenting also revealed that the google help entry seems incorrect : when dropping the period from my username, the mail did not arrive in the mailbox of my account that contains the period.

Kinda makes me wonder if someone else now received my test mails :/

Re:I am a liar.

[Anonymous Freak]

I've had an address in the form xxx.yyy@gmail.com for a long time. I picked it because I liked the separation. I don't even know if xxxyyy@gmail.com was taken before I registered. But I know that someone else (named Dave) has xxxyyy@gmail.com, because i receive his messages, including ones with private information, like web site admin login/password combos, which would give me access to billing information.

Re:I am a liar.

[plumby]

Don't know whether they've changed the registration or not, but I've just tried registering with hobart.prof and hobartprof - when I first went to register, it told me both were still available. I then registered one of them, went back to register the other, and it told me it had been taken. So presumably it is now preventing ab and a.b both being taken.

Re:I am a liar.

[Richard_at_work]

It only works one way round tho, if you register 'richard.price' then 'richardprice' will forward mail to you as well if it isnt already registered, but if you register 'richardprice' you DONT get 'richard.price' to use. I tried this ages ago when this was first mentioned.

Re:I am a liar.

[typical]

Or I can just take note from the editors of a certain tech-oriented website and continue on my merry, non-reaserching way :)

You know, if there's actually *demand* for validation, it would be *really easy* to "wrap" Slashdot. Create a website called ValidatedSlash or something like that, and keep a list of links to Slashdot stories that you've personally validated.

Re:I am a liar.

[ScottyUK]

The exact same thing just happened to me. I tried to send an email to myself, without using the period I have in my username, and with extra periods. None of them arrived in my inbox.

Recently I've been recieving emails not intended for me, from Transport for London regarding Tube outages and Oyster cards, addressed to someone without the period in their username but arriving in my inbox. I've also recieved password reminders and ticket booking confirmations from West Ham FC...useless to me, since I live in Scotland and I hate football.

Re:I am a liar.

[Richard_at_work]

Sorry Anonymous Coward, it is you who is wrong. The period thing only works if the origional email address has periods in it, all other variations are forwarded to one without periods in. If the origional doesnt have periods in, this is not setup and you only have the one email address.

No email to richard.price@gmail.com comes to me, but I pity the person who just had a barrage of testing emails sent to him.

If this acts differently for some people, perhaps its something google initiated only for certain groups or at certain signup stages, so not everyone got it.

Re:I am a liar.

[Ruleke]

It seems it is impossible to test this functionality from the email account itself. I just tested this from a second gmail address, and this seems to work. Doesn't directly make sense to me why it wouldn't work from the address itself, but there you go.

conclusion : functionality seems to be as documented in gmail help, for me at least

Re:I am a liar.

[wenchmagnet]

Wrong.

If you have username@gmail.com you will get email sent to user.name@gmail.com

I've been using it for quite a long time now.

Re:I am a liar.

[Richard_at_work]

Whoopy Do, so it works for you. It doesnt work for me, so how am I wrong? Just because some people can do it doesnt mean everyone can - Google has often rolled out features to some gmail users and withheld it from others, so how would this be any different?

Re:It's beta?

[DaHat]

Oh please, it's rare that Google ever move from a beta version to a gold version.

Granted, officially it's a public beta, sadly very few treat it that way and rely on it for their primary email contact.

Actually, you're not a liar. Just behind the times

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be possible to register both a no-dot and a dot name as two separate accounts, and the mail did mingle. Now it is no longer possible to register both (but mail going to a dot name will go to the no-dot name).

Does it work both ways?

[Jason1729]

For example, can I create g.oogle@gmail.com and get a copy of all email sent to google@gmail.com?

Re:What's wrong?

[mr i want to go home]

We've known about this since Gmail started. It's actually a VERY USEFUL FEATURE. I don't believe that there is any mis-delivery going on, because from memory you can't register cmdr.taco@gmail.com if cmdrtaco@gmail.com has already been used. So no one is going to be reading your mail.

Well, that explains a lot.

[ral8158]

Someone must have a version of my G-Mail account with a period in it. Apparently, they're very into penis enlargement...

Your neighbour got mail, huh?

[ceeam]

Well, I suppose this is what "BETA" in Gmail logo stands for. Good thing all current Gmail users are hence beta-testers, otherwise they would've had a serious reason to complain.

New Guy here..

[danee boy]

This is news? I've known about this since I've been using G Mail It's a feature not a bug. If my email addy was johnsmith@gmail.com I could give everyone the address john.smith@gmail.com and I'd still get it. It also cuts down on imposters someone cannot register your name with just a period added, and trick people into thinking they're you.

More bad news for Sean Penn

[bk4u]

Guess he also can't take the email Sean.Penn@gmail.com

Sean Penn Demands To Know What Asshole Took SeanPenn@gmail.com

ohhhhh SHIT!!!!

[Jafafa Hots]

I use my first name, a period, then last name.

Oh well - if someone has the other one, they are getting a LOT of email (I'm on a lot of listservs)

It's not a period...

[bdwoolman]

It is a G spot.

Re:It's not a period...

[gstoddart]

It's not a period...
It is a G spot.

Son, they may be located in similar places, but they are not to be confused!

Now go upstairs and tell your mother it's time for that talk she's been meaning to have with you. =)

Inaccurate Story

[Anonymous Coward]

As usual, Slashdot demonstrates its commitment to quality "journalism" by believing anything someone submits without doing basic checking.

This is a feature, not a bug (Really!). Furthermore, there will be no collisions. If you have gmail address, with or without periods, any variations on that with more or less periods cannot be registered and all email will be delivered to you regardless.

This is a non-story and a pathetic one at that.

Slashdot owes Google an apology.

Re:Inaccurate Story

[kadathseeker]

/. owes every site we've ever ruined (except fopr the few that deserved it), our mothers for letting us stay in the basement, all the animals used to test vaseline and hand lotion, Natalie Portman, the USA, all of Europe, the Amish, Linux developers, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Great Cthulhu, and the RIAA/MPAA great, big, apologies. Who am I forgetting?

Mod Slashdot -1 Flame

[null etc.]

Remove this story, as it's total b.s. BTW it was posted on digg 3 days ago, by which time it had been identified as b.s. Way to go slashdot!

WRONG

[Jafafa Hots]

I just sent myself a test email without my usual period between my first and last names, and it never arrived back.

Re:WRONG

[frdmfghtr]

I tried it first as one message to two recipients, and it didn't work either.

Try sending it from an email account other that your gmail account, and don't send to both addresses from the same message (i.e. two recipients.) I send one message from my university account to first.last@gmail.com then a second separate message to firstlast@gmail.com and both arrived.

Re:WRONG

[Ruleke]

Tank you very much. This explains the tests I did which got me worried... you need to test from an external account (tested myself with a second gmail one).

That explains a lot...

[ErnieD]

I had gotten a few strange non-spam emails on one of my gmail accounts, and basically wrote back to the person explaining that I'm not who they thought I was.

But now that I look back on those emails, I notice that they were addressed to firstname.lastname@gmail.com, while my address is firstnamelastname@gmail.com.

Doh.

Not a bug - you can't register the duplicates

[SquareOfS]

I don't know what this story is talking about, but the dot-ignoring delivery has been publicly known from day 1, and I just conducted the experiment of attempting to register a whole bunch of stupidly dotted variations on my username, and Gmail wouldn't let me register them.

So apparently they're doing the smart thing, and not including the dots when they do a uniqueness test on new usernames.

Maybe once upon a time in the very beginning they didn't, but I don't think that's the case now.

Experts Exchange..

[mikael]

Reading about this makes me really glad I don't have the gmail account: experts.exchange.gmail.com

Re:Experts Exchange..

[Hymer]

Well... It wouldn't work... there is no @ in it and some RFC (822 if I remember right) clearly states the form of an address as someone@somedomain with no spaces.
--
This space is pwnd by... My wife!

Re:It's beta?

[TubeSteak]

I saw a link to Google Gulp in "The World According to Google" thread, but when I read the FAQ, I thought their answer explains why they stay Beta

http://www.google.com/googlegulp/faq.html#11

11. When will you take Google Gulp out of beta?

Man, if you pressure us, you just drive us away. We'll commit when we're ready, okay? Besides, what's so great about taking things out of beta? It ruins all the romance, the challenge, the possibilities, the right to explore. Carpe diem, ya know? Maybe we're jaded, but we've seen all these other companies leap headlong into 1.0, thinking their product is exactly what they've been dreaming of all their lives, that everything is perfect and hunky-dory - and the next thing you know some vanilla copycat release from Redmond is kicking their butt, the Board is holding emergency meetings and the CEO is on CNBC blathering sweatily about "a new direction" and "getting back to basics." No thanks, man. We like our freedom.

Re:Need new moderation tag

[xMonkey]

OP AC was me.

A lier is one who lies.

Heres a merriam Webster reference. Towards the bottom the have an audio pronounciation for you as well.

Re:Nope

[mlewan]

Either you did that quite some time ago, or you are wrong. My gmail account is 2x5y)hp1 and I tried to greate a new one with 2x.5y)hp1, but gmail wouldn't let me. There is a validation that two users don't get the same account.

For anyone who wants to mail me, my mail address is not 2x5y)hp1 at all, but it could have been. Follow the url to my home page instead.

Please explain

[FishandChips]

Google doesn't make many mistakes but when it does, boy, are they doozies

I'm not American and I'm not sure I understand. What is a "doozy" and should I be worried if I have one? I'm hoping it isn't the kind of thing I can catch just from using the internet.

Re:Please explain

[jasonhamilton]

It's a STD. Google it.

Re:Please explain

[eyepeepackets]

Let me esplain: Doozy is a bit like floozy, cept that floozy makes you oozy while doozy makes you woozy. And if you don like this, you much too choosey.

Thanks to Fezzik and Ingo from "The Princess Bride" movie for such excellent inspiration.

Hope this helps. *chuckle*

Re:Please explain

[Itanshi]

silly people, refers to a doozenburg car

Re:Please explain

[dangitman]

Doozy - noun - Of, or pertaining to dooz.

Re:Please explain

[HairyCanary]

Congratulations on being mostly correct. Now if you could just spell it right when you pass along the name: Duesenberg.

Re:True!!

[Chimera252]

Same here. I just assumed it was some new spam trick.....

Beta

[Heembo]

Google *very responsibly* referes to a great deal of their software as Beta. Because it is still in Beta. You can read more about the concept of Beta *testing* at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_stage - again, Google, unlike most software companies, takes this concept seriously.

From Wiki: "beta build ... is tested through a limited roll-out to a production environment using live data and real users. The beta test is closely monitored by the software testers."

It's right on the GMail logo. http://mail.google.com/mail/help/images/logo.gif They take the concept of Beta very seriously. How many Beta products has M$ released and charged out out the nose for it? *all of em*.

Re:Beta

[Brianech]

heh I didn't have to pay for Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition Beta 2 So they do provide atleast 1 beta for free, and I am sure there are others.

Re:Beta

[smash]

Yeah, but you still need to pay for Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, etc

smash.

Re:Beta

[Heembo]

Yea, but what I mean is - Google calls a Beta product a Beta product. You're MS product that is in Beta is more like an early Alpha release. For example, Google News was in Beta for three years before they released it. http://news.com.com/2061-10812_3-6030207.html?part =rss&tag=6030207&subj=news

Re:Beta

[Brianech]

heh if you want to keep breaking it down, you could claim that you need to buy hardware to run any beta, thus nothing is free... Actually I didn't technically pay for WinXP. I got a free copy of XP Pro when I took my Operating Systems course in CSc(I doubt the course fees had anything to do with it, considering all 3rd/4th year courses are a flat fee)

Just tried a few things...

[non0score]

Such as sending to (substitute user.name with my real e-mail address, of course) user.name@gmail.com, u.s.e.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com, u.s.e..r.na.m.e@gmail.com, and username@gmail.com, when my real e-mail address was user.name@gmail.com. None of them worked except for user.name@gmail.com. So it seems like any e-mail other than the exact login name will not get forwarded to you. Of course, this could also be an exception case if there are more than one login name whose non-period versions map to the same name (for example, maybe before google patched their registration process, someone already registered username@gmail.com, as I never tried username@gmail.com to begin with, so I wouldn't know if that's been taken).

Re:Need new moderation tag

[xMonkey]

You are correct, Good Job, thanks. The word is liar.

This is a FEATURE...

[ares284]

Uh, as long as I've had Gmail (a few months since it came out), I have known about this, and it was said to be a FEATURE. You want to know how? Well, I created a filter that sends all email TO: firstlast@gmail.com to a spam label, and this way only people who email first.last@gmail.com (notice the period) will go to my inbox. It's a feature, much like the firstlast+tag@gmail.com. Some sites don't accept the +tag part though. So, in other words, sign up to websites that may spam you by using firstlast@gmail.com and it will be filtered to a spam label (if you set it up that way) but tell your friends your address is first.last@gmail.com. You could also do it vice-versa. Accept email only as firstlast@gmail.com but if an address has first.last@gmail.com, it is then marked as spam. If they "fix" this, I will be quite upset. I've been using it extensively. -Ares

Re:This is a FEATURE...

[texaport]

And people can filter by sometimes using fubar@googlemail.com vs fubar@gmail.com

Re:It's beta?

[Lispy]

He is braindead, right? Without even mentioning the lack of groupware functionality that Exchange has and even ignoring all the opensource alternatives out there why whould any company want to send and receive mail with a lame @gmail.com? They pay money for their webpresence, right? Amazing with what some smart-asses get away with. Please tell me he's not rich or successful in his filed of "expertise".

Why leave this article?

[angryLNX]

Why is this article being left on the front page? It has been seen to be completely invalid, and is giving people the wrong idea. Great, you put a correction up, but the correction negates everything the article contains. Get rid of it.

Re:Why leave this article?

[Thanatopsis]

Two Words - Ad Impressions.

It's really that simple. Even a total troll story lik this will generate them. Maybe even more since it's not true.

Re:Why leave this article?

[Radak]

Because some of us who rarely read comments (this obviously is an exception) would like to know the article was wrong. I usually read only the front page, and only look at comments on stories that particularly interest me.

The bolded Update let me know the original story was wrong, whereas had the blurb merely disappeared, I would not have noticed and may have continued the Digg/Slashdot/now Ars too (?) tradition of spouting unsubstantiated bullshit to anyone who would listen.

Re:Why leave this article?

[Art Tatum]

What, and lose all this sparkling repartee? Killjoy.

Re:Why leave this article?

[strider44]

And so are the people who had seen the untouched story then supposed to look through the front page, see that the story isn't there anymore and then just assume the story has been invalidated?

Ars technica doesn't make many mistakes

[dangitman]

But when they do, it's a doozy!

'.' character in local part does NOT violate RFC

[e_AltF4]

> The '.' character in an email address violates RFC,
> but no one seems to really care.

Nobody cares, probably because it doesn't violate the RFC.
Don't put it as first or last character and rfc2822 is your friend.

[...]
Some of the structured header field bodies also allow the period
character (".", ASCII value 46) within runs of atext. An additional
"dot-atom" token is defined for those purposes.
[...]

Google replies

[dangitman]

Please stop posting my email address on Slashdot. Think of all the evil spammers!

What is this "Slashdot" you speak of? We only see a site called "Slash"

OLD NEWS!

[digiital]

This is old news. I reported this to Google/Gmail back in August/2005. Here is a screen capture from the forum where I posted about this issue. http://putfile.com.nyud.net:8090/pic.php?pic=1/211 5353137.jpg&s=x4 Orginal post: http://www.thecomputermechanics.com/forums/showthr ead.php?t=2334

But there is ANOTHER dot problem...

[waytoomuchcoffee]

Anything sent to my email address with dots added NEVER gets to me.

My wife too. We both have very early gmail accounts (within the first month or so). Back in the early days, were different people allowed to sign up for different dot-variation names? If so, the obvious fix would have been to remove the dot functionality on those combinations to avoid having email sent to the wrong accounts. Which may be what happened with our accounts. That would suck if true, as missing this functionality is a big loss.

Or someone else already registered it

[PsyckBoy]

ya know?

erm, no

[BitterAndDrunk]

Perhaps I explained poorly.
I receive email addressed to mikerobert@gmail.com as well as email correctly addressed to mike.robert@gmail.com.
For obvious reasons, I'm unsure if he receives my e-mail.

And as a final P.S., I used e.g. correctly, as my name is neither Mike nor Robert. (It's Speedy Gonzales)

*rolls eyes*

[BitterAndDrunk]

Yes, I made up a complete fabrication to improve on my already excellent karma. Soon I will have more points than the rest of you losers! Take that, nerds!

I may be a filthy liar, but it ain't for this post. You should read my status reports. Then you'll know filthy lying.

Re:Need new moderation tag

[chaves]

However 'lier' does exist ("the one who lies down"):

http://www.answers.com/lier

I get these

[dotjerky]

My austin.taylor address gets emails on occasion that have nothing to do with me, and that are addressed to austintaylor@gmail. I do believe it's a bug.

Online Dating Service victim

[Shemus Lowrie]

I experienced this first-hand. I was surprised to see a registration confirmation in my inbox for Lavalife when I have never even been to the site and already have a girlfriend. Awkward, to say the least. It let me log on to his acccount information, and it turns out he's a married guy in Australia looking for a little "fun" on the side. If I were as sneaky as him, he'd be in the doghouse for a few months...

Oh

[Life700MB]

Google Makes Plenty of Mikstakes

Oh, the irony...

--
Superb hosting 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

Re:What's wrong?

[daikokatana]

So, it can be a great way to meet new people!

So very true. In fact, this is the real reason why spammers do what they do - send out as much mails to as much people they can reach, in the hope to find that one true person in their life.

They even offer rewards in their emails! Such good people...

Holy shit!

[Hooya]

you are not from around here, are you? how dare you retract your statement. it's Un-Everything (TM). i don't mean that as a cynical/satarical compliment. i literally mean what i said. largely on the off chance that your post may set a precedent and the rest of us actually have to follow in your Un-Everything (TM) ways of having to stand accountable.

naah, who am i kidding.

It seems that this *IS* an issue for some people..

[lordsegan]

A lot of people are saying this isnt an issue, but it sounds as if several people here are saying they DO get email intended for others. Does that suggest that at one point (or even now?) Google let people sign up both john.smith@ and johnsmith@ as different accounts?

Gmail name change?

[Jules Mercuri]

On a slightly related note, did anyone notice that Monday or Tuesday morning (EST) the "Gmail" in the logo changed to "Google Mail"?
Apparently this is what Gmail is called in the UK, for one reason or another, but I've never seen it in the US.

Re:Need new moderation tag

[Onuma]

A lier is one who lies.

How tautologically spoken.

No need for talk

[bdwoolman]

Stole my wife's Cosmo. Always thought Google's G naming thing was a bit risky.

G. spot

G. string

G. Gordon Liddy http://www.liddyshow.us/ Etc

A note on e-mailing yourself

[Temporal]

For those of you who are trying to "test" this by e-mailing yourself: That may not work.

GMail attempts to remove duplicate e-mails in your mail box. This is very useful, for instance, with mailing lists: You don't want to receive a copy of the e-mail you sent, since GMail is already smart enough to aggregate the sent copy with the rest of the "conversation". Also, when people use "reply-all" to reply to both you and to the mailing list, you probably would rather not receive two copies of the reply, so again, GMail removes the duplicate.

As a result of all this, if you e-mail yourself, GMail will treat it as a duplicate and toss it, so you'll only see the e-mail in your sent mail. I think they made a specific hack that tries to check for mail sent to yourself to put it in your inbox too, but there are lots of ways to make it not work. Long story.

Also, if you address an e-mail to both ab@gmail.com and a.b@gmail.com, ab will only get one copy of the e-mail since the second will be removed as a dupe.

Re:A note on e-mailing yourself

[enrgeeman]

wtf are you smoking? I send emails to myself while at school(they block gmail.com, but mail.google.com is fine) and they always show up in both the inbox and the sent mail.

Re:A note on e-mailing yourself

[Temporal]

*sigh*

In most cases, if an e-mail you sent ends up returning to you, it will be ignored as a dupe and not placed in your inbox.

The one exception is when the address you send the e-mail to exactly matches your username. This is a hack which was put in to allow you to e-mail yourself, since people seem to do this a lot.

Note that if you insert a dot into the target address, even though the target is still you, it is not an exact match, and so it will never hit your inbox. Try it: If your address is yourself@gmail.com, try sending an e-mail to your.self@gmail.com. If you send it from the same account, it will never hit your inbox. If you send it from some other e-mail address, it will.

Doh!

[davidmcg]

mole.station@gmail.com

Re:It's beta?

[nwbvt]

Either he is not alone or I've met that friend of yours. In a previous /. discussion some guy claimed to have started a business around moving companies to Gmail. We promptly pointed out that such a business would be a major violation of Google's terms of use (you know, the one stating Gmail is for personal use only) and thus a lawsuit waiting to happen. Still havn't heard back from him...

Re:It's beta?

[nwbvt]

You are free to change your product after a final release, its called version 2.0.

The goal of a Beta test is to let users discover all the final annoying little bugs out there before they put out a final release. Keeping something in Beta indefinitely defeats the point of Beta testing.

Delete a pointless story?

[toby]

You're new around here, aren't you...

this is new?

[TimeSpeak]

deja vu ...... yeah I remember people raving about this when gmail first came about...... I noticed I was getting emails that were addressed to someone with just the first 3 letters of my address.

Re:Crap... Wildcards are a problem, too...

[cobbaut]

I've signed up for tons of stuff and nobody sends anything to my $sys$@gmail.com account."

> At the risk of sounding like a total dumb ass, what does $sys$ mean?

$sys$ was used by the Sony rootkit to hide files.

Re:Crap... Wildcards are a problem, too...

[aaza]

I hate to point this out to you, but you need a username before the "@" symbol. That could be why no one is sending anything. Hope this helps.

Only 1/2 fixed...

[sjmacko29]

I am a "non-period username" gmail account holder (not the one I post to Slashdot with). As of 1/17, I am still receiving e-mail for the addressee who has the period in his address. It's nice... He's a real estate agent who communicates with his clients via e-mail. I'm sure they don't mind me reading all of their financial statements. Google may have fixed the initial account creation issue, but there is still an issue with delivery to previously created accounts. I have been doing what I think is the nice thing, and replying to the senders whose mail I mistakenly receive. I copy and paste the Google explanation, and further explain that I am not the intended recipient. This is an issue. I understand that Google is BETA, but I will only use that account for trivial stuff from here on out. I will never trust it beyond that. Hmmm.... Maybe I'll start posting to Slashdot with it. Can't get much more trivial than that. ;-) Steve

Gmail has been around how long?

[nmaster64]

Pretty sure if this had been really happening, someone would have noticed it maybe a bit sooner...

I seriously doubt someone just now realized they were getting someone elses mail for the past year...

D'oh!

[Caesar]

We did confirm it, or so we thought we did. The e-mail delivery problem is there, if you choose to call it a problem. Mail sent to JoeSixpack will arrive at Joe.Sixpack, provided that those two GAs are not 2004-era accounts registered to different people. Some people think it's a feature, some don't.

As for the accounts mix-up, it looks as though it matters when you registered your account. As you can see from the /. discussion, a number of people ran in to GA accounts when the service was still young. Now it won't let you register accounts with only a "." as a differentiator. It appears Google has fixed that aspect, but they are still delivering e-mail with the periods stipped out, which is how this was noticed in the first place.

Re:D'oh!

[NaDrew]

The e-mail delivery problem is there, if you choose to call it a problem. Mail sent to JoeSixpack will arrive at Joe.Sixpack, provided that those two GAs are not 2004-era accounts registered to different people.

I own my.name@gmail.com, and have since about day 15 of gmail's existence. I did not register myname@gmail. That was taken shortly thereafter by someone else who shares my name. I get his mail all the damn time. It's not a myth, it's not been disproved, it is absolutely a very real problem.

Another doozie

[alleycat0]

"Google doesn't make many mistakes..."

Well, see what Google suggests ("Did you mean...?") when you search on "landlords required to give heat" ;)

Tested it

[Feanturi]

I sent myself a few emails from another account. My gmail account doesn't include any periods in the username, as you may see in the spam-filtered version in this message header: the username is a single word. I sent a few test messages, throwing a period into some random spot in the name, and all test messages reached me. So that part's certainly broken. However, as some have pointed out, that's potentially a feature not a bug, as I was able to see on the receiving end, which period permutation the message had been addressed to. This is useful for figuring out who gave your email address to a spammer. Just throw in a few periods when you're signing up somewhere, note down the particular combo you used, and when/if you start getting new spam, you'll be able to see if it came out of the particular variation you used on that site. I just might use that 'bug' intentionally at some point and I actually hope they don't fix it, so that it will work when I expect it to.

I get other's email all the time.

[ayeco]

Over the past 2 weeks I've been getting email for someone else. I don't have a '.' but I guess the other guy does. So either all his family are idiots, he sent them the wrong address (mine) or this is a true story after all.

how does crap like this make the front page?

[halo112358]

scuttlemonkey for teh lose.

MOD PARENT UP!

[dafing]

OH GOD! if only I still had a mod point, its the thought that counts right?

gmail invitaion

[codepunk]

BTW who would like to throw a fellow slashdotter a gmail invitation.? I tried today getting one with the sms phone thingy but never got the invitation message.

Re:gmail invitaion

[VxJasonxV]

Message me @jabber.org (hopefully you're keen enough to figure the rest out?) and gimme an e-mail address.
I'll shoot you an invite.

THIS IS DEFINETELY A BUG

[aashah40]

Try this simple test and you will understand the bug Send email to yourself by replacing username below with your email username and see how many emails you get in your INBox. You will find that some emails do get deliver but some don't. if Gmail ignores dot in the username then why don't you get all the following emails sent to your Inbox? THIS IS DEFINETELY A BUG 1. username@gmail.com 2. user.name@gmail.com 3. u.s.e.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com 4. us.er.na.me@gmail.com 5. use.rna.me@gmail.com

Re:THIS IS DEFINETELY A BUG

[VxJasonxV]

^ this is definately a bug. Just confirmed it with my own account.

PEBKAC to confirmed to PEBKAC back to confirmed? Geez.

Been there, done that.

[Stephen Samuel]

Many years ago, I got handed a client who was hopping mad that we had misdelivered her most recent bill to her best friend. She wanted all sorts of things to cover the slight -- including a refund. I couldn't figure out how this could have possibly happened given what I knew of the system. Finally, I got the friend's phone number and called.

I got the friend to forward me the misdirected message and -- sure enough -- the customer had forwarded the bill to her friend as part of a test message.

This news only got the irate customer more irate. She accused me of incompetence, and lying to her and all sorts of other things. She still wanted a refund.

In the end, I told her I was passing her back to a Customer Support supervisor (I was a senior analyst, not a Customer Support geek, but I helped the second tier CS geeks with the serious problems).

She wanted me to say that it had been a pleasure dealing with her. I declined.

Re:Grammar nazi?

[freedom_india]

How do you call the Borg? Plural or Singular?
I never saw any episode on star trek TNG referring to the Borg as singular (or for that matter Plural).

Re:Crap... Wildcards are a problem, too...

[dascandy]

Gmail requires 6 characters before the @-symbol, so that's a lie.

The idea is nice however, I've been thinking about it for a while:

Most people nowadays prefix their email address with "SPAM". They consider it safer because spambots aren't that smart. Now, spambots auto-delete "spam" when it's in an email address.

So, what if you registered dascandyspam@gmail.com (for me) as normal email addy with dascandy@gmail.com as spam address?

Someone's seen the new t-shirts, right?

[Wee]

You're wearing one of those new black ones with the big white G on the front, I bet...

-B

Oof! Full contact politics.

[Art Tatum]

That's gonna leave a mark. I can't wait to see the replay on ESPN.

Having a secret life

[bjoeg]

Wow, that explains why since I registered my Gmail account I could follow another guys life about his move to Norway, confirmation on his DSL line, his parents visiting him and that there were no new CPR courses until 2006.

But hey, Gmail still carries the BETA tag.

old news

[miro f]

Everyone in gmail knows this. They said so themselves back when it started 2 years ago

Officially confused

[TintinX]

I don't get it.
My gmail address is first.last@gmail.com. I can only assume that someone else has registered firstlast@gmail.com because if I send an email to that account it never gets to me.
I tried logging into Gmail with firstlast@ and my password but it was invalid.
Surely this can only mean that someone else has access to it. I'm now concerned that mistyped emails will find thier way to my period-less doppleganger.
Anyone else got a similar experience?

Re:Crap... Wildcards are a problem, too...

[Gleng]

I always wished that *@*.* would work. :(

That explains...

[Jesrad]

... why I've gotten those emails intended for Jessica Radaelli (jes.rad) in my GMail account (jesrad).

Not a feature at all ... It's even more weird

[rawwa.venoise]

This is not necessarly true. I have an account f.myname@gmail.com and because someone registered fmyname@gmail.com (which appens to be a guy from my family) and i don't recieve his email and he dosent receives mine. Somehow the server must recognize this as different accounts so the fuzzy match only takes place if the names is not associated with some account first. And yes, our address where registered almost on the beginning of Gmail ...

Re:Not a feature at all ... It's even more weird

[Myen]

Yeah, back when I signed up (some time during the invite period), IIRC, there was something about the dots not mattering.

Strangely though I just got a mail addressed to oobarf@gmail even though my account is foobar@gmail - basically, one letter was moved from one end to the other. And yes, I checked the message headers and everything; the To: address is wrong, and there are no BCC fields (which I assume would show up if it's BCCing me), and it's a text/plain only message that isn't advertising anything, so I don't think it's spam...

Of course, whois says the sender IP was from Shanghai Telecom and the from address ends in .no, so it's probably just clever but pointless spam :p

Old news

[diemuzi]

This is such old news. Myself and co-workers had discovered this months ago on accident. I'm suprised how long it took others to finally speak up about it.

This has always been the case.

[thisisauniqueid]

Google stated that periods would be ignored when you first created your username, way back in beta testing days...

Another bug in gmail

[Ogotai]

Another delivery bug in gmail. My gmail account address is ogotai@gmail.com. Yesterday a received a message destined to hogota@gmail.com...

X-Gmail-Received: f04f4ab75270aa01a00783765ea527a82d46ea0b Delivered-To: ogotai@gmail.com Received: by 10.65.213.8 with SMTP id p8cs51050qbq; Sun, 22 Jan 2006 03:41:31 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.36.81.7 with SMTP id e7mr2902403nzb; Sun, 22 Jan 2006 03:41:31 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: from 72C5F94 ([58.35.64.158]) by mx.gmail.com with SMTP id 19si4073559nzp.2006.01.22.03.41.08; Sun, 22 Jan 2006 03:41:31 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: neutral (gmail.com: 58.35.64.158 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of Timmons1Hollingsworth@masterhelicopteros.com.br) Message-ID: From: "Willard H. Vann" Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 06:39:26 -0500 Sender: Timmons1Hollingsworth@masterhelicopteros.com.br To: hogota@gmail.com X-Responder-ID: 03 Subject: U free tomorrow Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;

MOD PARENT UP!

[bdwoolman]

Why.... thanks. d:-b ruce

Someone's seen the new t-shirts, right?

[bdwoolman]

Nope... No tee shirt sadly. Case of parallel evolution it seems.

d:-b ruce