HackerTube

So you think you can validate email addresses A journey down RFC5321

FOSDEM0 HN recommenders · 2019–2025
27K views · talk · evergreen · Uploaded 2018-02-10

Stavros Korokithakis gives a FOSDEM 2018 talk on how hard it is to validate email addresses properly, taking a tour through RFC 5321.

Linked whenever email validation comes up as a fun illustration of how deceptively difficult it is.

Networking & internet infrastructureSoftware (other)

Watch on YouTube

4 comments from Hacker News

@StavrosK2019 · in “Firefox Monitor”

The email standard does include the +, yes. Here's a talk on the topic: [VIDEO] But yes, that's why Fastmail supports the alternative syntax.

CitesView on HN
@sybercecurity2021 · in “I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an email service”

always relevant: "So you think you can validate email addresses": [VIDEO] Which is also why proposals to put email certs (S/MIME, OpenPGP) in the DNS led to hashing the local part, as DNS only allows ASCII and is case insensitive.

CitesView on HN
@stavros2022 · in “Stop Validating Email Addresses with Regex (2012)”

I gave a very fun talk on the topic in FOSDEM (VOLUME WARNING!): [VIDEO] It's more a joke than edifying, but it was very fun for me (and, I think, the audience), and illustrates the difficulty of email validation well.

CitesView on HN
@stavros2025 · in “"Email is Easy" email address quiz”

This is fun, but it feels suspiciously close to my old presentation about the exact same thing: [VIDEO] Maybe it's just a coincidence, but a shoutout would have been nice if not.

CitesView on HN