Avoiding Harvester Bots
 

Randy,

I'd love to be able to show my email in my profile without worrying about getting it harvested by spam bots. Any way FT could allow us to list it as "[email protected]" or some such?

Thanks in advance...

Good question. It is my understanding that there may be some code things we could do to prevent these bots from sifting through FlyerTalk. I myself can't answer to that question but I'm sure we've got the folks who could tackle this challenge. Let me pass this along to the gurus of tech and see what they have to say. Thanks for the idea as I'm sure it effects others and glad to see you stil active as a FlyerTalker.

I would like that too...

I know on my genealogy site, the email address shows w/ a space between each character - so you do have to key it in instead of being able to click on it, but it prevents the bots...

If I remember correctly, on PlaneBusiness you would fill out a form online that would then send the message to the recipient. This way, no email addresses were ever public.

And I agree about the spamming... for some reason, I am asking to be removed from 3 to 10 lists on any given day, yet I don't freely post my Yahoo e-mail address anywhere.

-nate

Many ISP's, including free email services have a spam filter available. Anyone who receives spam should check out the "help and support" page for their email service.

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There is VERY little that can be done outside of not showing real email addresses.

There are way to make like suck a bit more for the spam database guy though:

http://www.monkeys.com/wpoison/

Dorian

Aha! the things you can learn on FT!

I'm not technosavvy enough to have figured out on my own how all this incredibly unwanted email was being sent to me. (We're talking totally unwanted: solicitations to enlarge a body part that I don't even possess, for example -- and that's one of the tamer ones!)

So -- now the question: I've been told and read that the worse thing a person can do is respond to email trash (spam is too nice a word . . . think of all those nice folks in Hawaii who love the stuff!). Consequently, I don't.

?? -- do I really only have 2 choices: 1) living with it or 2) getting a new email addy?

I'm not smart enough to know what the WPoison option noted above is. Will anyone help?

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It's not a perfect world.

Someone alluded to a genealogy site earlier. One that foils spambots is at

http://genforum.genealogy.com

When you read an article on one of the boards and click on a link to the name of the person who posted it, it will display the e-mail address in a graphics file rather than text, so no robots can harvest it. It's pretty slick.

Yes, that is the one I was referring to. And not only is it a graphic, it has spaces between each letter, so it's pretty effective. I can tell you that I get no spam on my email address from this site after having it there for a long time now..

Don't reply to spam, even to ask to be removed. All you're doing is validating your address and signing up for 5 more lists. It's a geometric progression. Instead, report the spammer and relay to their ISP host. It's the best way to combat spam, short of actually being able to savagely beat the spammer in question.

Absolutely correct to question #1. As for question #2, check out:

www.mail-abuse.org

http://www.cauce.org/

http://www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/

www.spamcop.net



[This message has been edited by Spiff (edited 02-05-2002).]