You are presuming too much on spammers as a whole. I've dealt with a couple spammers, and they just used some tools they got online that search for usern...@domain.something. Everything else is ignored.
I don't for a minute doubt that the advanced spammers will snag anything and everything no matter how strange it is obfusticated (sp?). But there are a LOT of low-tech spammers still out there, and there is enough "low hanging fruit" for them that this little bit we are discussing can be over their head. Bob ---------- Original Message ----------- From: s...@pobox.com To: Ian Eiloart <i...@sussex.ac.uk> Cc: mailman-developers@python.org, Rich Kulawiec <r...@gsp.org> Sent: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:42:12 -0500 Subject: Re: [Mailman-Developers] Proposed: remove address-obfuscation code fromMailman 3 > Ian> Quite right. Rich's argument is, essentially, that obfuscation > Ian> isn't 100% effective so it shouldn't be used. Frankly, if > it's 10% Ian> effective, then it's worth doing in my view. > > I would be quite surprised if address obfuscation is anywhere close > to 10% effective. Maybe 0.01%. > > The problem I see with Barry's argument that users demand it so > Mailman must provide it is that position just propagates > misinformation about the ineffectiveness of the "feature". I would > vote for tossing it out, or at the very least making it a per-list > flag which admins could disable if they wanted. > > The other thing about Mailman's obfuscation is that I sorta think > that by now the spammers have figured it out. I mean, "skip at > pobox.com"? Come on. Even Barry stands a good chance of writing a > regular expression that can locate something like that, his self- > deprecation about his r.e. prowess notwithstanding. :-) If nothing > else, all an enterprising spammer would have to do is steal > Mailman's email address matcher and replace "@" with " at ". Oh, > wait, it's open source. They wouldn't even have to steal the code. > > -- > Skip Montanaro - s...@pobox.com - http://www.smontanaro.net/ > Getting old sucks, but it beats dying young > _______________________________________________ > Mailman-Developers mailing list > Mailman-Developers@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers > Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 > Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-developers%40python.org/ > Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-developers/bob%40nleaudio.com > > Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 ------- End of Original Message ------- _______________________________________________ Mailman-Developers mailing list Mailman-Developers@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-developers%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-developers/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9
