Gnomercy
09-30-2002, 03:35 PM
For those of you that don't subscribe to the LangaList, here is another installment of note....
***PLEASE NOTE: Use this at your own risk. It has not been tested by the staff at AOH.com and is not something that we will support. I am putting this here for our users to read up on and nothing more. That being said....
4) Hide (Obscure) Your Address From Spammers
Hi Fred -- There's been an awful lot of discussion on SPAM
recently. We all agree it's gotten way out-of-control. You
mentioned a number of tools that help kill SPAM at the point
of receipt, but I use one that helps prevent your name from
getting on these lists to begin with. It's a must-use tool for
any webmaster. Type in your email address into this form and
it will return an obfuscated version of your email address
which you then insert as code into your web page. Instead of
using the traditional "mailto" tag, you use the "a href" tag.
This fools those pesky harvest bots and they skim right on by.
I know you've discussed similar technology on the Langa List
before, but this one is extremely useful. I've edited all 70
web pages on my site to include this and I noticed an
significant difference in the amount of SPAM I received with
new email addresses. As a test I created 3 new email addresses
for my domain. I obfuscated one of them and linked the other
two using the traditional "mailto" tag. Within 2 weeks I
started to receive SPAM at these 2 new addresses, but have yet
to receive any at the obfuscated one.
http://www.manastungare.com/asp/preventspam.asp
Another tip I never post my true email address on a bulletin
board, guestbook or other Internet forum. Instead, I manually
obfuscate it by inserting something into the address which
obviously doesn't belong there. For instance
webDISCARDTHISmaster@mydomain.com. You wouldn't believe how
much SPAM I get at that address...
Thanks again -- love the Plus addition. Best money I've spent
on the Internet. Pat Beemer
Thanks, Pat. The "preventspam" link does make easy one kind of
obfuscation--- substituting HTML letter codes for the actual letters in
your address. For example, if I add this to the HTML of a web page or
HTML email...
<A HREF="mailto:%77%65%62%6D%61%73%74%65%72%40%6C%61%6E%67% 61%2E%63%6F%6D">Email</A>
...a browser will display it as a mail link to "Email" with the actual
email address (in this case, "webmaster@langa.com") well obscured.
Address-harvesting 'bots see only the raw code ("%77%65%62%6D%...." etc),
and skip it.
You can achieve a further level of obscuration by using a small script
snippet--- say, a "document.write" command--- to display the obscured
address: Most 'bots won't look inside scripts, and thus won't even try
to harvest the address.
For other ideas on stopping spam, check out
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010706S0006
***PLEASE NOTE: Use this at your own risk. It has not been tested by the staff at AOH.com and is not something that we will support. I am putting this here for our users to read up on and nothing more. That being said....
4) Hide (Obscure) Your Address From Spammers
Hi Fred -- There's been an awful lot of discussion on SPAM
recently. We all agree it's gotten way out-of-control. You
mentioned a number of tools that help kill SPAM at the point
of receipt, but I use one that helps prevent your name from
getting on these lists to begin with. It's a must-use tool for
any webmaster. Type in your email address into this form and
it will return an obfuscated version of your email address
which you then insert as code into your web page. Instead of
using the traditional "mailto" tag, you use the "a href" tag.
This fools those pesky harvest bots and they skim right on by.
I know you've discussed similar technology on the Langa List
before, but this one is extremely useful. I've edited all 70
web pages on my site to include this and I noticed an
significant difference in the amount of SPAM I received with
new email addresses. As a test I created 3 new email addresses
for my domain. I obfuscated one of them and linked the other
two using the traditional "mailto" tag. Within 2 weeks I
started to receive SPAM at these 2 new addresses, but have yet
to receive any at the obfuscated one.
http://www.manastungare.com/asp/preventspam.asp
Another tip I never post my true email address on a bulletin
board, guestbook or other Internet forum. Instead, I manually
obfuscate it by inserting something into the address which
obviously doesn't belong there. For instance
webDISCARDTHISmaster@mydomain.com. You wouldn't believe how
much SPAM I get at that address...
Thanks again -- love the Plus addition. Best money I've spent
on the Internet. Pat Beemer
Thanks, Pat. The "preventspam" link does make easy one kind of
obfuscation--- substituting HTML letter codes for the actual letters in
your address. For example, if I add this to the HTML of a web page or
HTML email...
<A HREF="mailto:%77%65%62%6D%61%73%74%65%72%40%6C%61%6E%67% 61%2E%63%6F%6D">Email</A>
...a browser will display it as a mail link to "Email" with the actual
email address (in this case, "webmaster@langa.com") well obscured.
Address-harvesting 'bots see only the raw code ("%77%65%62%6D%...." etc),
and skip it.
You can achieve a further level of obscuration by using a small script
snippet--- say, a "document.write" command--- to display the obscured
address: Most 'bots won't look inside scripts, and thus won't even try
to harvest the address.
For other ideas on stopping spam, check out
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010706S0006