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Customer's 20-Year-Old Email Account Shut Down Over Unusual Address (www.cbc.ca)
A Halifax man is facing the daunting task of going through almost two decades of email messages after his email provider served notice it was deactivating his account in 30 days because of his email address: noreply@eastlink.ca. From a report: "I had it since the late '90s, probably 1998 when I really started getting online," Steve Morshead told CBC News. "I asked for it, it was available and they gave it to me without hesitation." He said he picked the handle "noreply" because he wanted an unusual address -- and back in the '90s, it was. Morshead never expected to lose his email address, which he uses for communicating with everyone from friends to banks to lawyers. He is in the process of selling his home and says this couldn't come at a worse time. "My email address is a personal identifier for banks, eBay, Kijiji, and hundreds of other places I've logged into -- so many I can't count," Morshead said. He said he wouldn't be in this situation if Eastlink had addressed the issue when he applied for the email. "Now, after all these years, 20 years almost, I find it reprehensible they want to pop out of bushes and just give me 30 days to go through 20 years worth of emails and decide what I want to keep," he said. Morshead said he was given 30 days notice on June 7 that he would lose access to his email address and all of his emails.
trade it for abuse@eastlink.ca
I suppose 20 years ago "noreply@" wasn't really standardized as an email bit bucket for domains, so I'll give him a pass on that, but yes, in general it really doesn't seem a suitable email address today. It will be some work, but get a new address, update all the important services and move on. Want to actually own an email address, buy a domain and host it with a company with email service. That's the only guarantee.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Something like this happened to me. My email address was with a company called "Lavabit." Except they didn't give me 30 days, they shut down with 0 notice. After they shut down, they even lied to us, saying that our emails were safe, that they were having technical problems and would be back up in a couple of days.
It was a huge mess, I would have appreciated 30 days, but I still would have been upset like this guy.
Pray you never get divorced, sued, have a need to sue someone else, audited, or are suspected of a crime.
20 years almost, I find it reprehensible they want to pop out of bushes and just give me 30 days to go through 20 years worth of emails and decide what I want to keep
He keeps them all online? Does his provider not have a pop3 option to download everything he has been hoarding on their servers and sort from there at his own leisure?
. .
It's a good thing he did keep them, because now he knows who he's communicated with and what accounts he has linked to it. He can inform the various people/services of the change.
Digital data isn't the same. As long as you're not paying for storage space it's not worth the time to delete it - old emails certainly don't get in the way of reading new emails and their contents often times can come in handy.
That said - 30 days is plenty of time to setup a new account and use an IMAP transfer utility to migrate every single message - even if it is 20 years worth. It's also plenty of time to change all of his online accounts for services (about 6 months ago I decided to switch primary email addresses and I was able to list and transfer every account I could think of within 2 evenings).
The only real problem would be personal acquaintances that contact him via that address. In that case though I'd setup an "out of office" or the equivalent immediately and just have it respond with a message indicating that his address will be changing soon.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Well, aren't you special? So...because you can keep email organized, everybody should be able to? Just because you don't need old emails, no one else should?
I'm not sure why 30 days is problematic. Nor do I understand the claim that he's going to lose his mail. He says the company won't help, while they say they've offered to help.
In any case, migrating email from one IMAP server to another is simple. And, if it's still POP3 for some reason, anything he wants is already on his computer - nothing needs to be downloaded.
Heck, Gmail has a tool that'll do exactly this for both protocols, doesn't it?
#DeleteChrome
Wait until Yahoo! mail shuts down. So many website accounts will be toast
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
"I just want to tell people be aware that your email address may not be your own,"
If you want an email you own, register a domain and use that.
From Eastlink consumer terms and conditions
7. Your telephone numbers and identifiers
7.1 You do not own any identifier (e.g. telephone, account, calling card or PIN number; email, IP or Web page address; access code, etc.) assigned to you, and we may change or remove any identifier at any time upon notice to you and we will in no way be required to compensate you for such changes. You are permitted to use (but not register with any organization) only those IP addresses we have provided to you.
Those conditions are from 2014 but you can be sure there were similar provisions back in 1998. Probably back as far as Eastlink has been providing telephone service in the 70s.
It was never "your" email address Steve
I think he's brilliant
I just did a quick boo at Eastlink's website and no where are there guidelines for email handles.
Maybe if the handle meant something different 20 years ago than it does now they could come back and say something, but I suspect the real reason is that "noreply@eastlink.ca" is a damn useful email address for eastlink.ca
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Once again, someone finds out the hard way that "the cloud" means "someone else's servers."
Of course, I don't expect him to run his own mail server. That's a bit of a technical challenge. But I do expect people to continue to suffer from putting their stuff on other people's servers.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I've set up my mail system to auto-delete anything that comes from noreply@*
I use mail to communicate, not to be told things.
It's just bad manners if companies only want to talk and not listen.
He is in the process of moving all of his email to Yahoo's servers. Should be good for another 20, right???
I've got emails going back over 20 years.
I bet a lot of other people here do as well.
Being able to pull up an email thread from years ago has been useful on numerous occasions.
You can try to sell me on wasting my time picking through and sorting email, but it ain't happening. It stays in the inbox forever, and storage is dirt cheap. If I run out of Gmail space, I'll drag everything into a new archive using a IMAP client and start fresh. If I need to find something - anything - I can just search the huge pile. Need to fill out that apartment address from 5 moves ago on a lease application? No problem. Want to email aunt Martha and for some reason didn't put her email into your address book? No problem. Want to see that picture you sent mom of you and your brother with grandma? No problem. Hell, you can even read your Best Buy spam from 1996 if you are so inclined.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
OK, so why the hell can't Eastlink just rename the account or move the emails over to the new account? (for that matter, so can this guy with a few clicks...)
I doubt that's the problem -- it's that he's used that email address to register for other services for the past 20 years, and he may not remember to update his contact info /recovery address on every single one of possibly hundreds of other websites like gmail, expedia, his bank, his cable company, netflix, xbox live, Steam, EA, etc. until it may be too late.
Very easy to overlook a few of those, and depending on the site in question you may be screwed if you don't think about them until the 30 day transition has passed.
what an email packrat, reminds me of those hoarders that fill their house from wall to wall & floor to ceiling with every piece of junk they find even if they have no use for it or just a piece of junk,
i dont keep email longer than a week or two, when i am finished with it i delete it,
Windows came and I started using Forte Agent at .98 and I've used nothing else, I've been using that program when or before running Win98 Or NT/W2K, and keeping my Emal for some odd reason. I have that email from 1998 and almost every one received as well as all i sent out . I can't really explain why unless it's an example of never having to install Agent other than that first time after it's pulling an Icon to the desktop (Agent installed on Drive D).
Maybe keeping them was because of (forget hierarchy Alt.~.Microsoft.nt.misc (?) that was one fun times on Usenet, very helpful group. Just a bunch of users given a new OS and sharing tips and tricks with each other. (Microsoft sent anyone who asked NT - having a Win95 client/Outlook server/ Exchange Server/SP2 - being important we all had it within two days hot rush (I had asked many months earlier)) Nobody above the others and it was all about shareing, tricks I learned at that time I still use to this day - the who cares type: a selection isn't selected until you release the mouse key - the open a clear run command 15 paths in grab a file and drop it in the run command you will have the entire path to file (I use this one a lot and was told of it way back then.
Whatever the reason (the above was reminiscing that hated to quit. I have them all, one would think it a huge security risk legal as well as personal if all are stolen. Not what I post or email about :) drives have been imaged by one looking to screw me :) nothing came about it.
True facts. 1998 Email upon request, headers only if of a personal nature.
Please... Just download all of it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I remember back when Aol bought Netscape they took my netscape.net email address and gave it to the aim user with the same name. I hope the office troll who came up with that plan died of scabies.
Could you maybe elaborate on why that pissed them off?
david, david2, david3, david4, da5id...wtf?! who does this noob think he is?!
Also, why does it matter if he's a graphic artist?
Programmers thought the graphic artists were a bunch of assholes. Graphic artists thought the programmers were a bunch of assholes. I managed to gain the respect of both teams from my hard work as the intern.
Doesn't make sense, they should have started at david0
So sayeth the elitist asshole who doesn't grok that not everyone is as tech savvy as you
Thank god for Trump and North Korea -- Ignorant and Arrogant Elitists such yourself are about to disappear en mass
Most of us "tech savvy elitists" don't really know how to do a given task, either. What we know how to do is look it up and apply step-by-step instructions. If that doesn't work, maybe then we'll ask for help. Then, others are more willing to help you because then you're showing respect for their time and you're not just being lazy. They tend to respect that you want to learn and be shown how instead of demanding to be coddled.
It's "elitist" now to expect someone to Google a topic with obvious search terms and then apply very simple (typically illustrated) step-by-step instructions? It's "arrogant" to expect him to ask the company (the old one or a new one) "how would I migrate the e-mails to another account, got any simple ideas?" That requires "tech savvy", really? I don't see how it requires anything more than basic literacy. It certainly requires less time than contacting the media and convincing them to make it into a news story.
I guess you drive a car and have no idea how to change a tire, right, because that would require a "mechanical expert"? Clearly that's exactly the same thing as rebuilding an engine or repairing a transmission, right? Do you really want to validate the idea that a grown man with no diagnosed mental retardation just plain can't handle this? In order to what, justify your own laziness and lack of initiative? That's the world you want? Think carefully about that.
Reading the article and having the tiniest bit of empathy, its quite obvious he's mad about the former, losing the address, as now he has to go through 20 years worth of contact communication and account data and transition everyone and all the services involved. My 1Password has 2800 sets of credentials the majority of which are associated to the same email address. If that suddenly was taken away from me that's 2800 password resets I can't do, 2800 accounts I can't confirm ownership of via email.. 2800 headaches.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
donotreply@eastlink.ca
The email he needs is noreply@his_own_domain_name.whatever_TLD_he_chooses.
Using your provider's domain name is going to mess you up sooner or later, most typically when you move house.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I do to, but only a sadist or retard would still be tied to an ISP based email address in this day and age. can't feel any sympathy for someone that has let themselves get into such a situation.
I can't imagine spending an iota of effort or time worrying about someone else's username. The phrase "get a life" comes to mind.
Omg, is his name "dead mouse" or "dead mauve" ?
Why would anyone want to keep that address anyway?
If he'd have copyrighted it, he could be shakin' down a whole lotta people. Just sayin'.
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
The idiot part is that he hasn't figured out he can archive his existing email, send a 'change of address' notice to important contacts and basically be spam-free for a few months.
If I still had some moderator points I would mod this up.
Who cares what someone else's user name is? Only the petty and the spiteful.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
but I suspect the real reason is that "noreply@eastlink.ca" is a damn useful email address for eastlink.ca
Why? The express purpose of that email is to catch those you don't want to talk to. There's no difference between making it noreply@eastlink.ca vs noanswer@eastlink.ca, noreply1@eastlink.ca, no.reply@eastlink.ca
By it's nature they aren't expecting people to use it so what's so valuable about the specific name? I understand webmaster@eastlink.ca has a general pattern for people who want to contact someone, but what's the pattern if you don't want to contact anyone? Worst case this dude ends up with some really stupid spam from rely stupid people.
you don't have to be at the Whim of a non ISP based one to fix the problem idiot. spend $50, buy a domain name and have mail routed to your ISP. This protects you from them being bought, going broke or you simply moving. alternatively route your mail via a webmail service (again preferably from your owned domain). being at the whim of any provider when easy technical solutions exist is moronic.
If you don't mind Putin reading your email, you can host a domain's email for free (with up to 1000 addresses) via Yandex. You just change your records at your registrar and the propagate almost immediately, and you can configure quite a few things from there - including a fairly robust web interface, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, etc...
They had excellent uptime, when I played with them. They weren't in blacklists or anything. I seem to recall you can do SPF and all that jazz. If you're paranoid, you can encrypt messages. They don't mine them for adverts, so I am not sure what the economical model is - unless they hope that you'll upgrade to a paid service. I guess they could mine them for intelligence, but that seems like a large fishing adventure without a great chance of payback.
Still, 'tis worth looking into - if you're needing to do something like this. It's pretty easy to change your records at the registrar. You can even configure it so that you're able to get your mail at mail.example.tld and more. It's kinda neat.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Because a 5 is not a v.
The Romans would disagree.
-IOVAR Web Dev Platform
originally my login here was @10u8 until that stopped letting me login because suddenly the slashdot id became an e-mail address and the new code would not tolerate my old id
We have the same problem, Zathros liked his email address, my brother Zathros liked his, my other brother Zathros wanted to keep his also, our law firm Zathros, Zathros and Zathros was a mess for email , Sheridan was most displeased!
Be nice and just create sub-domains for them. It is free and you can create as many as you want!
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Why would anyone want to keep that address anyway? I would think it would cause all sorts of problems with people assuming that it was an unmonitored account. I don't have a lot of sympathy.
No, I don't expect you do. It seems to be a common misconception here that it is somehow 'tough' to be uncaring and express you contempt for the plight of others. The fact that you haven't got the courage to show your face, but post as an AC, suggests that you are not really all that tough.
But back to the question: If you have 20 years' worth of important contacts, who have your email address, then you have plenty of good reasons for not wanting to change that address. Figuring out who has your address and who is important is very hard work, which you would know if you had ever had to do it. and getting everybody to change the contact details they have for you is even worse. Should he have chosen a better name back then? Perhaps - but he didn't and it has worked for 20 years, so what is your point actually? His ISP could let him continue using this address without breaking into a sweat, and it is not actually their business interfering in what kind of imagine their customers want to impress on their contacts - they are in the wrong, simply.
By it's nature they aren't expecting people to use it so what's so valuable about the specific name?
First it looks official enough for phishing, which is something they might want to prevent. Second just because noreply is in the name does not mean that people won't send replies there.
There's no difference between making it noreply@eastlink.ca vs noanswer@eastlink.ca, noreply1@eastlink.ca, no.reply@eastlink.ca
I would be quite suspicious if I got an email from noreply1@eastlink.ca and you should be too, that you list it as acceptable makes me wonder for how many scam mails you fell this year alone.
I guess he got the address around the time you were born. Those of us who were on the internet when he got the address can tell you that no, there was no "standard" (which it's not) of putting noreply in the local part of the address to indicate that replies were not wanted. People back then mostly adhered to proper standards, not bogus customs invented when marketdroids discovered the net. It was, and should still be, a perfectly good address.
May we live long and die out
What? You told me you loved my cat pictures! Mr. Frizzles is funny. You said to yourself.
Now I see how you are. Well no more feline beauty pageants for you mister.
And I'm going to tell Frankie to stop sending his skateboarding while drunk videos too. Once he's out of the hospital, of course.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Email addresses have almost become the equivalent of a physical address. All your bills can come to it,all your correspondence, almost every business asks for it, some even require it. This has been encouraged by internet providers in a sense (they'll want your email address too). I wouldn't be surprised t learn that there is significance legally in contracts and other agreements.
So now you have people who have setup much of their life around an email address in pretty much the same way they've done with their physical address and it has become an integral part of their life and business.
Forcing a user to relinquish an address for whatever reason is kind of like a city renaming your street or changing your house number. I wonder what that does to legal devices such as mortgages, etc. Is mail still delivered or does it come back as invalid address? How long does it take for the address change to percolate it's way through the system? Will SWAT show up at the wrong house (again)? Will emergency services not find your place?
I bet some lawyer could make a go at this.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Are we to assume the employee was actually called "Five-hundred-a-five-one-five-hundred"?
That would be "Internal Server Error a Gateway Timeout" for you webdevs out there.
This sounds like something an asshole would say.
Which is why I work in IT today.
This is what I do too, with the added bonus that I actually have a catch-all for a subdomain that goes to a single email address, thus if someone random wants my email address I give them:
their.company.name@handler.example.com
It is easy then based on the send to email address to determine who's sharing/selling email lists and blackhole them.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump