Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
Summed up very well Justin.
And yes, Apple Mail is the best way to defend against spam (junk mail).
It has an awesome spam filter system.
Shane Helm
{ sonzeDesignStudio
On Jul 7, 2004, at 12:51 AM, Justin French wrote:
On 06/07/2004, at 10:50 PM, Neerav wrote:
I havent tried this, but it sounds interesting
http://www.phoenity.com/newtedge/hide_email_spambots/
As soon as a new technique for hiding email address' becomes widely
publicised, then *everyone* knows about it. Yes, that includes the
makers of spambots.
All they'd need to do is crawl linked stylesheets looking for
content: ...;, and then realise that \40 is an @ symbol, and hey
presto, they've found another set of email address'.
Seriously, there is no way to avoid spam if you plan on making your
email address public on a webpage -- plain and simple. if you have a
way to encode it, they'll find a way to decode it. To live in the
myth that we, the humble web developers, are smarter than hundreds or
thousands of super-geeks writing spambots to fuel their BILLION DOLLAR
industry is ludicrous.
Yes, they could decode and read javascripts, yes they could read
linked style sheets, yes they can attempt to detect text inside images
and yes they can beat whatever else you can come up with.
The ONLY fail-safe method of hiding your address from spambots is to
NOT PUBLISH IT, which means you need a contact form which only lists
names or nicknames of staff members... matching that name to an email
address is done server-side with PHP (or Perl/ASP/CFM/et al).
Even then, it's not much of a stretch to imagine a spambot parsing the
form and guessing email address' based on the names in the form,
combined with the domain name.
As said earlier in the thread, spam is best defended with filtering at
the receiving end -- I get 50-100 spam messages a day (in addition to
the ones caught by my host server-side), of which Apple Mail catches
about 98%.
---
Justin French
http://indent.com.au
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Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
thats actually very good :) Thanks :) ___ Cameron W (aka t94xr) http://www.t94xr.net.nz/ XHTML CSS Compliant. Taupo, NZ. - Original Message - From: Neerav [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WSG [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 12:50 AM Subject: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS I havent tried this, but it sounds interesting http://www.phoenity.com/newtedge/hide_email_spambots/ -- Neerav Bhatt http://www.bhatt.id.au Web Development IT consultancy Mobile: +61 (0)403 8000 27 http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/neerav * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
Neerav wrote: I havent tried this, but it sounds interesting http://www.phoenity.com/newtedge/hide_email_spambots/ Two problems: doesn't allow mailto:; and doesn't work in IE. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
Also, on Firebird you can't copy and paste the email address which is a bit annoying. Also, it would be a bit annoying to deploy on site where the email address links are generated dynamically, you'd need to generate a bit of CSS as well as the link. All in all, I wouldn't use that method. Mordechai Peller [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Neerav wrote: I havent tried this, but it sounds interesting http://www.phoenity.com/newtedge/hide_email_spambots/ Two problems: doesn't allow mailto:; and doesn't work in IE. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
I use the following javascript. It works well for me.
script language=JavaScript!--
var name = insert username;
var domain = insert domain name;
document.write('a href=\mailto:' + name + '@' + domain + '\');
document.write(name + '@' + domain + '/a');
// --/script
just place it in your code where the usual a href tag would go.
If you want to add a class to it, it goes here -- domain + '\ class= ');
Ted
-Original Message-
From: Mordechai Peller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 7:40 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
Neerav wrote:
I havent tried this, but it sounds interesting
http://www.phoenity.com/newtedge/hide_email_spambots/
Two problems: doesn't allow mailto:; and doesn't work in IE.
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Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
- Original Message - From: Ted Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] I use the following javascript. It works well for me. Ted - the downside beign they dont use a JS enabled browser? They cant contact you. Better is a PHP Contact Form John Wyles has one - a very good one indeed. ___ Cameron W (aka t94xr) http://www.t94xr.net.nz/ XHTML CSS Compliant. Taupo, NZ. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
How's about: pso-and-soscriptdocument.write(@anywhere.com)/scriptnoscript@anywhere.com/noscript/p At least you're covered whether or not JavaScript is enabled. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
Neerav wrote: I havent tried this, but it sounds interesting http://www.phoenity.com/newtedge/hide_email_spambots/ Nice concept -- but -- all it takes is for a spammer to start harvesting based on the \40 string and stream substitute it for the @ into their DB. Given the incompatibility with IE, the fact that Firefox cannot copy + paste it, and the large amounts of CSS for more and more email addresses on a site, it suddenly becomes a not-so-good idea anymore. To make matters worse, if someone were to publish their business' email addresses like this in a single CSS file - well... can you imagine every email address available for a spammer to download? That would be like hiding the keys to your house under a fake rock. That's pink. (Well, maybe harvestors don't parse CSS, yet...). -- /** * Adam Carmichael * [EMAIL PROTECTED] /( _,-,_ )\ _| |_ /,|| * #1 Computer Services \`/ \'/ _| |_|| * BSD/UNIX Cisco Network Engineer\ /,\ /,\ /| |_||_ **/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
HI All My thoughts on this issue are here: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg05509.html If doesn't really matter what obfuscation method you use: - If its visible to users spam harvestors can get it if they really want to. - The more you hide it (via js, css or what ever else) the more you lose on accessibility. Spam has to be stopped on delivery - hiding email addresses is a bandaid solution and a poor one at that. Cheers Mark -- Mark Stanton Gruden Pty Ltd http://www.gruden.com * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
Mark Stanton wrote: - If its visible to users spam harvestors can get it if they really want to. Of course. The point is just to make it more difficult. A car alarm doesn't stop car theft, but with all else equal, the thief will choose one without an alarm. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS
Of course. The point is just to make it more difficult. A car alarm doesn't stop car theft, but with all else equal, the thief will choose one without an alarm. That's fine true but by making it difficult for spam bots you also make it difficult for your users. -- Mark Stanton Gruden Pty Ltd http://www.gruden.com * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
