Hiding email addresses on the web

[Stephanie Stokes]

At 07:53 PM 12/10/97 -0800, you wrote:
>I know that some mass email companies (spammers) are using webcrawlers
>to find their victims' - er, I mean recipients' -  addresses on web 
>pages.  In fact, I think I'm getting more spam from having my  address 
>on a web page than I am getting legitimate inquiries from the library 
>web pages.  And that is very annoying.

[clip]

A couple of suggestions...

(1) You can put up a cgi driven feedback form so that people do not need to
use e-mail to contact you. Check out the "Express Mail to Editor" form at
http:www.ssdesign.com/librarypr/toeditor.html for an example. This script
was written in Perl as was provided by our ISP. If you use a UNIX server or
can use Perl scripts I could send you a copy with instructions if you let
me know by e-mail. You don't need to be a programmer to make it work.

(2) You can use an e-mail address with added characters in it which must be
removed by the sender. 

	Example: 
		change your e-mail from spober at manvax.cc.manhattan.edu 

		to

		spober at manvax.cc.manhattanSPAMSTOP.edu

You may need to link your mailto to a page with instructions advising
people to remove the "SPAMSTOP" before sending the e-mail. The spammers
will send mail to  pober at manvax.cc.manhattanSPAMSTOP.edu and it will get
lost in cyberspace.

	Stephanie Stokes
	Library Media & PR
	http://www.ssdesign.com/librarypr/