gift certificate problem/suggestion

paul29 · 16 Sep 2014, 07:33 PM

I've been chatting with someone online using forum software, not email. I haven't exchanged personal info (real name, primary email) with the other person and don't want to do that yet. But I'd like to move the conversation to Fastmail for better privacy compared to the forum. My first thought was to buy the person a gift certificate and ask them to use it to open an FM account, but:

1) sending a gift certificate tells the recipient "you have received a gift certificate from [name of sender]" and I don't want it to disclose my name. The name seems to be the primary "personality" associated with the account, so maybe I could handle this by making a new personality and temporarily setting that as primary, but that's only because I have an upscale FM account that supports personalities.

2) You seem to need an email address to send the gift certificate, and the contents of the redemption link seems to be different for the sender and recipients.

I think a gift certificate should just be a url with some random-looking hex digits in it. When you buy it, you add an optional message possibly including your name. Then you can communicate the url to the other person any way you want. They click on it and can redeem it without getting any info about you that you didn't decide to supply.

janusz · 17 Sep 2014, 01:46 AM

A possible another solution:

You open the account and pay for it. Tell the other person what the userid and pw are, and tell him/her to
a) use a different personality for messages if (s)he doesn't like the userid of your choice
b) change the password.

paul29 · 17 Sep 2014, 10:32 AM

Yeah, that's a possibility, I considered it but I wonder if retrievable payment info might be associated with the new account. Also the gift account would be Lite, which doesn't support personalities. Maybe it's possible to rename an account though. I'd rather FM have an officially recognized way to gift an account anonymously.

janusz · 17 Sep 2014, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paul29

Also the gift account would be Lite, which doesn't support personalities.

All accounts support 500 personalities
https://www.fastmail.fm/help/account/limits.html

paul29 · 18 Sep 2014, 12:04 AM

Oh ok, I confused personalities with aliases. But you need aliases to receive messages at a different address than the account name, and Lite accounts don't support that except in very limited form.

bramhall · 18 Sep 2014, 03:18 AM

If I understand your goal, you want to have an email communication channel without revealing any actual personal information, including your (and your partner's) "standard" email address.

Does it have to be Fastamail at the other end? Why not ask your partner to open another account with his/her favourite provider and use it solely for correspondence with you? Of course you do the same, with FM or elsewhere....

paul29 · 18 Sep 2014, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bramhall

If I understand your goal, you want to have an email communication channel without revealing any actual personal information, including your (and your partner's) "standard" email address.

Does it have to be Fastamail at the other end? Why not ask your partner to open another account with his/her favourite provider and use it solely for correspondence with you? Of course you do the same, with FM or elsewhere....

Yes, I prefer for the entire exchange to be within Fastmail, whose privacy I trust more than other providers. I often try to get people to migrate to FM from Google and Yahoo since I'm more comfortable corresponding that way. I don't like writing to gmail/yahoo addresses regardless of whether I know the person, since I don't want the messages stored on those servers. I think it's also preferable for both people to be on the same server so that there's no server-to-server traffic transmitting the email. For example, fastmail-to-fastmail is best, but gmail-to-gmail may be better than fastmail-to-gmail since it's harder to profile the traffic by monitoring the external internet.

The FM gift cert system seems like a weird kludge anyway. Most other sites have "coupons" which are generated strings that can be redeemed by entering them into a web form.

cyberpear · 18 Sep 2014, 10:26 AM

You could send the gift certificate to yourself, then send your contact just the link to redeem the gift certificate. At least on the beta site, FastMail also sends you a link to redeem the gift certificate yourself. On the page to redeem the link, there is no personal information.

bramhall · 19 Sep 2014, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paul29

I think it's also preferable for both people to be on the same server so that there's no server-to-server traffic transmitting the email.

This is true for any server, not for FM only. BTW, as fas as I know, Fastmail uses a few servers, with users being (randomly??) allocated to one of them. Do you really know the route data are sent over from one FM server to another?

Alse please note that some providers use encryption between mail servers, so the "same server" argument may be irrelevant..

All in all, it seems you want not only to keep the contents of your messages private, but also to conceal the identity of one correspondent from another. This isn't a common topic discussed here. May be you should check whether MI6, ot CIA, or FIS, or Mossad run relevant evening classes

paul29 · 19 Sep 2014, 03:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyberpear

You could send the gift certificate to yourself, then send your contact just the link to redeem the gift certificate. At least on the beta site, FastMail also sends you a link to redeem the gift certificate yourself. On the page to redeem the link, there is no personal information.

That link has my numeric FM user id embedded. The link that the other person receives has a different number.

paul29 · 19 Sep 2014, 03:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bramhall

This is true for any server, not for FM only. BTW, as fas as I know, Fastmail uses a few servers, with users being (randomly??) allocated to one of them. Do you really know the route data are sent over from one FM server to another?

It's still internal FM traffic (there's tons of it and it's undifferentiated) so it doesn't really bring out a connection between one user and another.

Quote:

Alse please note that some providers use encryption between mail servers, so the "same server" argument may be irrelevant..

No, supposed abcmail and xyzmail are two separate, low volume providers. I'm on abcmail and you're on xyzmail. That means traffic between the abcmail and xyzmail servers indicate that you and I are emailing each other, even if the content is encrypted. But if it's all within one service, it's harder to infer anything. Best for this might be a huge service like gmail.

Quote:

All in all, it seems you want not only to keep the contents of your messages private, but also to conceal the identity of one correspondent from another. This isn't a common topic discussed here. May be you should check whether MI6, ot CIA, or FIS, or Mossad run relevant evening classes.

Anyone who answers craigslist personals uses disposable hotmail and yahoo accounts for the purpose of concealing their identity from the other perosn until they mutually decide to move forward, so it's a completely common and normal thing to want to do. It's not exactly the situation I'm in but it's sort of similar.

bramhall · 19 Sep 2014, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paul29

.Anyone who answers craigslist personals uses disposable hotmail and yahoo accounts for the purpose of concealing their identity from the other perosn until they mutually decide to move forward, so it's a completely common and normal thing to want to do..

Precisely.
Each side chooses his/her email provider and address (anonymous & disposable). There is no ridicule of one partner forcing the other to use a particular service.

paul29 · 20 Sep 2014, 03:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bramhall

Precisely.
Each side chooses his/her email provider and address (anonymous & disposable). There is no ridicule of one partner forcing the other to use a particular service.

Yes, and there's not much privacy, usually because most email users aren't highly privacy-conscious, but also because in that situation, not too many really private things are discussed. You exchange basic info by email, then maybe go on to a phone call, then maybe meet in person, and things progress from there.

In the online chat situation it's different: you get to know the person pretty well over a longish period, but they're in another country so you're not likely to meet in person anytime soon, and the message contents start to reach into more private areas, and you don't really want it subject to global internet surveillance. It's not that annoying a request to ask them to enroll an FM account as long as they don't have to pay for it. I've done this with people I know a couple times. It also seems useful to be able to do it anonymously.

paul29 · 27 Sep 2014, 12:58 AM

While looking for something unrelated, I found another thread about this gift certificate issue from several years back:

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=52093

It says the default personality is the one that the gift certificate will appear to come from. So changing the default, sending the GC, and then changing back sounds like a plan. Main question is whether there is a way for the recipient to see the original personality, after it has been restored subsequent to sending the GC.

16 Sep 2014, 07:33 PM	#1
paul29 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 166	gift certificate problem/suggestion I've been chatting with someone online using forum software, not email. I haven't exchanged personal info (real name, primary email) with the other person and don't want to do that yet. But I'd like to move the conversation to Fastmail for better privacy compared to the forum. My first thought was to buy the person a gift certificate and ask them to use it to open an FM account, but: 1) sending a gift certificate tells the recipient "you have received a gift certificate from [name of sender]" and I don't want it to disclose my name. The name seems to be the primary "personality" associated with the account, so maybe I could handle this by making a new personality and temporarily setting that as primary, but that's only because I have an upscale FM account that supports personalities. 2) You seem to need an email address to send the gift certificate, and the contents of the redemption link seems to be different for the sender and recipients. I think a gift certificate should just be a url with some random-looking hex digits in it. When you buy it, you add an optional message possibly including your name. Then you can communicate the url to the other person any way you want. They click on it and can redeem it without getting any info about you that you didn't decide to supply.

17 Sep 2014, 01:46 AM	#2
janusz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: EU Posts: 4,944	A possible another solution: You open the account and pay for it. Tell the other person what the userid and pw are, and tell him/her to a) use a different personality for messages if (s)he doesn't like the userid of your choice b) change the password.

17 Sep 2014, 10:32 AM	#3
paul29 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 166	Yeah, that's a possibility, I considered it but I wonder if retrievable payment info might be associated with the new account. Also the gift account would be Lite, which doesn't support personalities. Maybe it's possible to rename an account though. I'd rather FM have an officially recognized way to gift an account anonymously.

18 Sep 2014, 12:04 AM	#5
paul29 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 166	Oh ok, I confused personalities with aliases. But you need aliases to receive messages at a different address than the account name, and Lite accounts don't support that except in very limited form.

18 Sep 2014, 03:18 AM	#6
bramhall Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 369	If I understand your goal, you want to have an email communication channel without revealing any actual personal information, including your (and your partner's) "standard" email address. Does it have to be Fastamail at the other end? Why not ask your partner to open another account with his/her favourite provider and use it solely for correspondence with you? Of course you do the same, with FM or elsewhere....

18 Sep 2014, 10:26 AM	#8
cyberpear Member Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 40	You could send the gift certificate to yourself, then send your contact just the link to redeem the gift certificate. At least on the beta site, FastMail also sends you a link to redeem the gift certificate yourself. On the page to redeem the link, there is no personal information.

27 Sep 2014, 12:58 AM	#14
paul29 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 166	While looking for something unrelated, I found another thread about this gift certificate issue from several years back: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=52093 It says the default personality is the one that the gift certificate will appear to come from. So changing the default, sending the GC, and then changing back sounds like a plan. Main question is whether there is a way for the recipient to see the original personality, after it has been restored subsequent to sending the GC.