An alias with a generated name works perfectly. An alias named after where it is going does something extra: it tells you the source of a leak without any investigation.

If acme-shop.4kf2@skudo.org starts receiving cryptocurrency spam, exactly one company had that address. You do not need to prove it, you need to know it, and now you do.

A naming habit that works

• One word for the site, then let us append the random characters.
• Keep it lowercase and boring. An address is typed by strangers and read aloud on the phone.
• Do not encode anything private in it. The address travels in the headers of every message, and it is the one part of this that is never secret.

Descriptions and labels

The address is not the only place to put the information. Every alias has a description, and labels group them: shopping, work, throwaway.

The dashboard can also show the icon of the site an alias was created on, which is the fastest way to recognise a hundred addresses at a glance. It is fetched once and cached here, so the site never learns when you look at your own list.

When the site refuses your address

A few sites reject addresses that contain a dot or that come from a domain they have never heard of. Two things usually work: switch the alias domain to your personal subdomain, or use a domain you own, where nothing about the address suggests a forwarding service at all.