> Reply to: foiling address harvesting from web pages >Does anyone have any idea how intelligent addressing-harvesting bots are >these days? I'm considering a policy on publishing staff email addresses >on our web page. Even if we start putting in spamtrap addresses for SIMS, >I'd like to avoid putting real addresses up in usable form.
I would say that if one seeded the list with spamtrap addresses, in addition to using DNSbls (my favorites are ORBZ, the SpamCop list, and Spamhaus [hi Steve!]), very little spam would be received by the staff. I strongly dislike the munging of corporate or staff email addresses, as it makes it more difficult to contact people at that organization. >Are bots likely to reconstruct addresses listed as "somebody AT >mprinc.com"? How about addresses listed as just "somebody" with a >note at the top >of the list to append "@mprinc.com" to all addresses? (Since the website is >www.mprinc.com, a bot wouldn't really have to be smart enough to read the >note--it could just guess that the domain is "mprinc.com".) What about >other forms of munging? I think most bots just look for mailto: links or @ signs. Some may reconstruct [blah] AT [wherever], but I've not heard of any reconstructing the username with the domain, if they're not mentioned together. >Would also like to know what others think, in general, about publishing >unmunged email addresses in publicly-viewable staff directories. Have you considered using a CGI form so that mail can be send to the staff without having to publish an email address? -- Pete Stephenson HeyPete.com ############################################################# This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
