In 1997, the domain name authority (Network Information Center, or NIC) for the country of Tonga was launched. The country code for Tonga is “to“, so the NIC was naturally called TONIC.
A number of my friends and I instantly jumped on acquiring a domain under the new “.to” top-level domain (TLD). Back then, there were only a limited number of TLDs. Some of my friends and I had been pulling apart email servers (Mail Transport Agents, or MTAs), and studying the underlying network protocol by which email is exchanged, and one thing we observed was the conversation a mail server initiates when starting to send a new message:
S: 220 smtp.example.com ESMTP Postfix
C: HELO relay.example.com
S: 250 smtp.example.com, I am glad to meet you
C: MAIL FROM:bob@example.com
S: 250 Ok
C: RCPT TO:alice@example.com
S: 250 Ok
C: RCPT TO:theboss@example.com
S: 250 Ok
C: DATA
S: 354 End data with .
It was from these that we landed on the domain “rcpt.to”. And for the last nearly 30 years, I took the email address james_AT_rcpt.to. I had set my own subdomain of this, with my personal site where I would experiment with various things at “james.rcpt.to”.
Over the years, eyebrows were raised quizzically when local organisations questioned if I was really in Australia, or really in the UK, given the different email domain. And indeed, my Linux host that processed my email was indeed in those countries, and never actually in Tonga.
People then ask me… do you run your own mail server? Yes, I do. I experiment with the full range of online services. I often implement security features and approaches that are several years ahead of what commercial providers are servicing their clients with. For example, have a look at the MTA STS posts, where you can specify security requirement for Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs, as explained above). I experiment with mass mail virtual hosting, virtual domains, IMAP security settings (yes, TLS is used, just as it is in HTTPS).
Recently i was diagnosing an issue with SMTP, whereby emails to a Hotmail address were not going through. The SMTP logs revealed a response from the Hotmail servers would not accept my messages due to settings at a whole-of-domain level that with rcpt.to, were not in my direct control.
I contemplated this for a while, and then decided that this should be in my control in some way… so the time has come to move on from a shared domain for my personal experimentations, to one that I have complete control over.
I obtained the domain jamesbromberger.com many years ago, initially looking to have it as my consulting brand. However, the much better name Nephology came along (the study of clouds), so jamesbrombegrer.com was somewhat unused… until now.
It turns out there’s quite a bit involved when not just changing email address (how many places is it used?), but also redeploying your digital services to a new domain — starting with this blog.
After a few days of frenetic activity, its now mostly done. The old (personal) email address still works, and will do for the foreseeable future, but eventually I will decommission the SMTP reception for it. The old website at www.james.rcpt.to has a message to signpost people to the new domain. The old domain is still accepting SMTP. This blog is now at blog.jamesbromberger.com. My QR code generation service is at qr.jamesbromberger.com.
I think in the last 48 hours I have updated over 100 online services that have my email address: Government agencies, banking, insurance and other financial services. Loyalty programs. Airlines. Clubs and Associations. Vendors.
What I have seen from changing email is that some services permit this, and others have it strictly controlled and not user serviceable. Most that do permit users to change email addresses, verify the new email destination by sending TOTP codes or magic links. Some also re-verify the old address you are leaving, which luckily for me is still working. A few required a mobile phone MFA when doing this activity.
So after almost 30 years of james.rcpt.to and james_AT_rcpt.to, it’s time for a change.
You can email me at james_AT_jamesbromberger.com, or for consulting discussions, james_AT_nephology.net.au.