Support for onion email addresses would be useful

[bruceleerabbit]

This is a suggestion for the danwin email service, which would first likely have to be implemented in this server project.

It would be useful if users could choose between [email protected] and someusername@danielas3rtn54uwmofdo3x2bsdifr47huasnmbgqzfrec5ubupvtpid.onion in the FROM field on a per-message basis. Rationale:

• You may not really want replies. This would be a clever alternative to a bogus address like “noreply@…” for announcements to clearnet recipients you don’t really want a reply from.
• Tor-savvy recipients might be able to respond if they are sufficiently motivated and tech-savvy as well. In which case fair enough.
• Anti-spam: the msg might get public exposure and spammers are unlikely willing to bother with .onion email addresses as rare as they are.
• GDPR data minimization: You are filling out a form that needlessly makes email address a required field, but you’re not happy to share an address that can be easily used and abused by the recipient. OTOH, if it’s a government form you may not want the consequences of giving misinfo. An onion address would thwart use and abuse to a great extent without being accused of lying.
• Tor advocacy and awareness.
• You want to discourage users of Gmail and MS Outlook from contacting you, in which case a surveillance advertiser gets a view on your inbound traffic. If you email a gmail or outlook user with an onion address, you at least have control over what info is seen by those data abusers without concern of replies from a naive user sharing too much.
• Currently no email providers offer this. It would be a unique killer feature that draw more users (hopefully along with more charitable patrons).
• Recipients would establish a danwin account just so they can reply to onion addresses, thus drawing more people away from surveillance advertisers in general.