[Web4lib] Mailto: links that can't be harvested by spambots?

Micah Stevens micah at raincross-tech.com
Mon Feb 19 16:46:05 EST 2007


Depending on how a spam filter is implemented, it can reduce the total 
bandwidth consumed by a great deal actually. The key is to determine 
spam before you accept the incoming email. This is possible a variety of 
ways based on IP blacklists, SPF records, digital signing, etc..

-Micah

Ross Singer wrote:
> Actually, I think that employing /both/ approaches is the most logical.
>
> While, yes, email addresses will still get out, spam filters do
> nothing to stop the amount of bandwidth consumed by the spam emails.
> By obfuscating email addresses this will at least reduce /some/ of
> this burden (which, at the end of the day, /somebody/ is paying for in
> bandwidth costs).
>
> I don't think any of the obfuscation proponents are saying that this
> will prevent all spam.  It prevents some, however, and, /as I've
> already pointed out/, doesn't get in the way of accessibility, so why
> not reduce some of the spambots targets?
>
> -Ross.
>
> On 2/19/07, Jonathan Bloy <JBloy at edgewood.edu> wrote:
>> Bill Drew wrote:
>> > This whole discussion is a bit disturbing to me.  Just put
>> > your e-mail adress there.  Bite the bullet and use a good
>> > spam filtering package.  Deal with it like the rest of us
>> > do by being as accessible as possible.
>>
>> Excellent advice.  The thing is, we can attempt to protect our email
>> addresses to the Nth degree but we will still get spam.
>>
>> My personal email address (on my own domain) has never been posted
>> anywhere.  I use it only for friends and family.  About a year ago, it
>> started to get incredible amounts of junk mail.  I can only assume that
>> one of my friends caught a virus/trojan on their computer that harvested
>> my email from their address book.
>>
>> Dictionary attacks, where spammers send combinations of usernames to
>> specific domains (especially larger ones) are also common.
>>
>> If you have an email address, spam will find you eventually.
>>
>> -- 
>> Jonathan Bloy
>> Web Services Librarian
>> Edgewood College
>> Madison, Wisconsin
>> http://library.edgewood.edu
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>>
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