Is there anyway to validate email addresses the way these guys are doing it?

[jdock1]

goodguybadguy.net

 

they can tell when you enter an email address that hasnt been registered yet. how the hell are they doing this? does gmail or  yahoo have some sort of database they allow access to for this?

[Rifts]

that site is BS I just entered TWO of my real email address and they both came up as "not real email"

[AbraCadaver]

that site is BS I just entered TWO of my real email address and they both came up as "not real email"

 

Probably not the smartest idea   Maybe they just wanted email addresses!

[JonnoTheDev]

goodguybadguy.net

 

they can tell when you enter an email address that hasnt been registered yet. how the hell are they doing this? does gmail or  yahoo have some sort of database they allow access to for this?

No. This is done by obtaining the MX records from the email domain i.e [email protected], the domain is yahoo.com.

Take a look at the examples here.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.getmxrr.php

 

I would not use this method as you may not always be able to perform the lookups if there are DNS issues. This is backed up by the last post stating they put 2 valid addresses in and they both failed.

 

What you should do is validate an email address by sending out a link to the address entered. When the user clicks on the link you know that the email address is valid. Email addresses that dont validate you can have a cleanup routine to get rid of them from your database.

[Rifts]

that site is BS I just entered TWO of my real email address and they both came up as "not real email"

 

Probably not the smartest idea   Maybe they just wanted email addresses!

 

Don't worry I used my junk/spam accounts, but they are real accounts  =]