this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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I've been noticing an influx of users with anonomized usernames (ie: fjdasklfpudiosa722104891fdaf20j.srv.us).

As a moderator this concerns me because it immediately triggers a 'this is a bot or nefarious actor' instinct. Is there any reason not to be wary of these accounts?

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[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

It’s actually a good idea - I need to figure out how to do that.

For the last several years I’ve used randomly generated email addresses for every account. I can turn off forwarding when they’re inevitably leaked to spammers and there’s one less thing for demographers to aggregate data on me with. That works well when every service insists on a working email address.

But then I get lazy and use a more obvious username so I can remember it. I need to be able to auto-generate those as well