--- title: My burner email blocklist blocked me · Benjamin Piouffle description: The author of Burnex, an Elixir library for blocking disposable email domains at signup, reflects on why they no longer recommend this practice. The core... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/my-burner-email-blocklist-blocked-me-benjamin-piouffle-bz0qhoc4k twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: My burner email blocklist blocked me · Benjamin Piouffle | daily.dev og:description: The author of Burnex, an Elixir library for blocking disposable email domains at signup, reflects on why they no longer recommend this practice. The core... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/my-burner-email-blocklist-blocked-me-benjamin-piouffle-bz0qhoc4k og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/bz0qhOC4k.png og:image:alt: My burner email blocklist blocked me · Benjamin Piouffle og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # My burner email blocklist blocked me · Benjamin Piouffle **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 5 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The author of Burnex, an Elixir library for blocking disposable email domains at signup, reflects on why they no longer recommend this practice. The core argument is that blocklists fail to distinguish between public throwaway inboxes (e.g., yopmail.fr) and personal email aliases (e.g., Firefox Relay, Apple Hide My Email), which are legitimate privacy tools. Determined abusers easily bypass blocklists using Gmail plus-addressing or custom domains, making the cost asymmetric: real privacy-conscious users get hard-rejected while spammers adapt. The author proposes splitting upstream blocklists into two categories — public shared inboxes vs. personal alias providers — and has opened an issue on the widely-used wesbos/burner-email-providers list to propose this change. Burnex itself has been deprecated and transferred to a new maintainer. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is the difference between a burner email and an email alias for signup validation purposes? A burner email is a public, short-lived inbox anyone can access, useful only for clicking a verification link once, like yopmail.fr or mailinator.com. An email alias is a permanent forwarding address tied to a specific account, controllable and traceable, such as those from Firefox Relay or Apple Hide My Email. Blocklists that treat both the same end up rejecting privacy-conscious users rather than actual abusers. _Anyone designing signup validation can track this alias-versus-burner distinction on daily.dev before writing a blocklist rule._ ### Why don't email domain blocklists effectively stop spam signups? Determined abusers bypass domain blocklists easily using Gmail plus-aliasing (you+shop@gmail.com), tools like Emailnator that generate infinite Gmail variations, or cheap custom domains that look like legitimate business email. Blocklists mainly catch low-effort automated bots while hard-rejecting real users who use legitimate privacy aliases, making the cost asymmetric and the protection largely illusory against motivated spammers. _Teams weighing anti-abuse tradeoffs can follow this kind of analysis on daily.dev when designing signup fraud defenses._ ### What happened to the Burnex Elixir library for detecting burner emails? Burnex, an Elixir package created in 2018 that compared emails against a list of known burner domains sourced from wesbos/burner-email-providers, was deprecated by its original author in early 2026 due to lack of time and no longer being used in his own products. Ownership was subsequently transferred to a new maintainer, Klemen Sever, who offered to take over the project. _Developers relying on Burnex for email validation can watch for maintainer transitions like this via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [My friend’s email startup finally got traction. Turns out it was a phisher.](https://daily.dev/posts/my-friend-s-email-startup-finally-got-traction-turns-out-it-was-a-phisher--t4kizq9px) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Inside the infrastructure behind fake signups: our open source disposable email domain list](https://daily.dev/posts/inside-the-infrastructure-behind-fake-signups-our-open-source-disposable-email-domain-list-ubultbqv0) · Security Boulevard · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Inside SURBL, the email blacklist that checks your links, not your IP](https://daily.dev/posts/inside-surbl-the-email-blacklist-that-checks-your-links-not-your-ip-cbettjtof) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Why Email Domain Restrictions Alone Won’t Protect Your Marketing Forms](https://daily.dev/posts/why-email-domain-restrictions-alone-won-t-protect-your-marketing-forms-n4dy3fcbe) · Arcjet · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Eating Our Own Dog Food: How SD Times Killed the ‘Burner Email’ Problem for 1.2 Cents a Record](https://daily.dev/posts/eating-our-own-dog-food-how-sd-times-killed-the-burner-email-problem-for-1-2-cents-a-record-5woqoiwxl) · SD Times · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy), [#elixir](https://daily.dev/tags/elixir) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/my-burner-email-blocklist-blocked-me-benjamin-piouffle-bz0qhoc4k) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"My burner email blocklist blocked me · Benjamin Piouffle","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-burner-email-blocklist-blocked-me-benjamin-piouffle-bz0qhoc4k","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-burner-email-blocklist-blocked-me-benjamin-piouffle-bz0qhoc4k"},"datePublished":"2026-07-10T15:38:27.305Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T21:04:47.316Z","description":"The author of Burnex, an Elixir library for blocking disposable email domains at signup, reflects on why they no longer recommend this practice. The core...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--foaA6JGU--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2004","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--foaA6JGU--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2004","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-burner-email-blocklist-blocked-me-benjamin-piouffle-bz0qhoc4k","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"privacy,elixir","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"My burner email blocklist blocked me · Benjamin Piouffle"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-burner-email-blocklist-blocked-me-benjamin-piouffle-bz0qhoc4k#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the difference between a burner email and an email alias for signup validation purposes?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"A burner email is a public, short-lived inbox anyone can access, useful only for clicking a verification link once, like yopmail.fr or mailinator.com. An email alias is a permanent forwarding address tied to a specific account, controllable and traceable, such as those from Firefox Relay or Apple Hide My Email. Blocklists that treat both the same end up rejecting privacy-conscious users rather than actual abusers. Anyone designing signup validation can track this alias-versus-burner distinction on daily.dev before writing a blocklist rule."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Why don't email domain blocklists effectively stop spam signups?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Determined abusers bypass domain blocklists easily using Gmail plus-aliasing (you+shop@gmail.com), tools like Emailnator that generate infinite Gmail variations, or cheap custom domains that look like legitimate business email. Blocklists mainly catch low-effort automated bots while hard-rejecting real users who use legitimate privacy aliases, making the cost asymmetric and the protection largely illusory against motivated spammers. Teams weighing anti-abuse tradeoffs can follow this kind of analysis on daily.dev when designing signup fraud defenses."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What happened to the Burnex Elixir library for detecting burner emails?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Burnex, an Elixir package created in 2018 that compared emails against a list of known burner domains sourced from wesbos/burner-email-providers, was deprecated by its original author in early 2026 due to lack of time and no longer being used in his own products. Ownership was subsequently transferred to a new maintainer, Klemen Sever, who offered to take over the project. Developers relying on Burnex for email validation can watch for maintainer transitions like this via daily.dev."}}]} ```