Keeping out the spam email addy harvesters

Can we not be provided a way to prevent spammer harvesting by displaying an obfuscated email address?

 

I wish.  EGreetings are among the worst, sending email saying you've been sent an eCard - and it's shameless scam to get you to give them info and confirm your addy.  Personally, I think we should fight fire with fire, but ethics become a problem here.

(Ha!  As if they care about ethics.  How many times do you see thngs like, "This is not unsolicited mail.   You have shown interest in the past..." or "You have opted-in to.." (outright damned lie) or "We have merged with a company with whom you have subscribed..." etcetera.)

The best advice is the filter their wretched scribblings so that you never see them.  Be warned that Hotmail is particularly inept at providing tools to do this, but Outlook Express for non-Outlook email filtering isn't bad at all.  (And if that doesn't make clear where Microsoft's loyalties are, I don't know what will.)

Never, ever reply, not even in anger.

 

In regards to this system we setup, one has to be a registered member to view the "Members" page.

 

Yes, and I use it. But I'd like the public to see it for personalized email, by having it say (like if i WERE a hotmail user), instead of carlene@hotmail.com, something like carlene@DIEhotSPAMMERmail.com

I s'pose for now I can use the internal messaging system. Oneday, I think a facility to handle this will be added, just not for now.

If anyone ever want's to cantact me, they can get me at:

ik8viwgii2001@DIEsneakeSPAMMERmail.com

BTW, yes, those greeting card companies RUINED all of my mother's enthusiasm for email and computers in general, after a nit-wit friend of hers sent her an egreeting. We all know what happened next.

Oh wow, I just realized I can put it in my siggy!  

Regards

 

Carlene, did you see my reply?  Only registered members can access the Members directory.  So unless someone is a member, they cannot read the un-hidden emails.  If anyone were to go pilfering emails, it would have to be a member.

 

Spiders, remember the spiders!

 

Good point.

I guess the only alternatives right now are simply to put the "changed" email address in your signature, or to just rely on the PM feature and other things (like IM contacts).

Hotmail also provides a fairly good tool for blocking spam in its preferences - however, once your e-mail address is out there...I guess it won't help (as the spammers will simply find ways around it).

*sigh* The on-going saga...

 

oi! Time to educate the ignorant nice-guy Detox again hehe

well.. if you would that is...  

spiders? eh? I know you don't mean arachnids... (sp??)
soooo what is it?

 

Nonetheless, even spiders or crawlers won't be able to access pages that are only accessible by membership only.

 

Are you aware of little (free) tools like spam-killer, spamhate and such you can configure at wish with build-in filters you probably never knew they were possible.
If you don't want them to run as an extra, you might like to look at them and copy those filters as rules in your email program's rules.
I have the junk transported to the trash so i can check if no valid emails were filtered out accidently and after a while this can be changed to deleted from the email server and not downloaded at all.
More advanced versions of the spamkillers you can have replying automatically with fake bounce messages, hoping to get deleted from their databases.

It surely can be a general security problem, due to all kind of abuse, infections, intrusion etc. in them.
Security upgrading, patching whenever MS calls out for that, popup-stopper on high for all those uninvited opening windows in emails --most of time in the spam-- adding new filters each day in the rule settings, but i'm not worried about this board, really.

If you really need to use your email address in the open for all the fanmail, you can also use in stead of the @ a space (%20) or a 2 or %20@%20 so it will not be recognised by the crawlers, or put a space %20 in front so it is not you, or type "at" in characters in stead of @,  
or like you do now with the dirty words between it and you might like to add "remove xxx and xxx spamfilters" which all might help.
I might suppose your friends/real contacts know how to reach you.

 

Indeed, I just pretended I was a spider and was denied access. My apologies evryone.

 

The way I look at it is this.  If anyone has a genuine need to contact by email, they wont mind sending you a message via the boards and ask for your address, explaining why they need it.

However if you do feel the need to have a public address, why not sign up with http://dea.spamcon.org and get one of their free addresses.  It sends genuine mail through, whilst filtering spam....real mail is redirected to the email account you sign up with..  Once spam starts getting through (and eventually it does), you simply turn off the address (which will then bounce everything) and create a new one.  I use it for public usenet posts or anywhere my address is public these days.  I still have some change to make around the net on various boards, but my spam has almost stopped entirely.

 

Word of caution... just noticed.

Even though as a guest one cannot access the Members page, it appears that they can access the email or profile page of a member vea message threads.  This is pretty inconsistent in board design, and something I'll address with the YaBB support crew.

For now, if you don't want your email harvested, hide it!

 

Hmmm, for pay and does not seem to even come close to http://www.sneakemail.com , the service I use. Free.

 

dont know what you were looking at.  mine is free.  there is a for pay option but thats not compulsory. I like that i dont have to create a new address every time i need to give one out, and i like that the spam never reaches me.

also I dont need to mung my spamcon address on this board or any other.  spam doesnt get thru for ages.  when it does, i just get a new address.

but..if your sneakemail does the same job and more, what then is the problem and why does this thread exist?

 

My reply that did not post

Ahhh, A good question. At first glance, yours seemed to be for pay if you wanted more that 3, mine is/was free for UNLIMITED trash addresses. Mine also provides "filter back", where your client headers can be stripped off, even your IP.

Sneakemail is/was brilliant. It was just hard to imagine something better. Better I speak next time upon extensive examination, before badmouthing. I shalll give this spam solution of yours a go-round.

Hey, try sneakemail youself and we'll opine here together, whadda-ya-say?

Regards

 

As a spider impersonator, I did pooorly to miss that., but my original point at last found merit thriugh YOUR follow-up. Thank you!

 

I read at the website that you give a sneakemail addy to...say ...someone you sign up with...C|Net for example.  then if you get spam to that address you'll know cnet was naughty...etc etc... and you use a different address for each person/company/site you deal with....so you always know who's selling your addy off..  Thats not what the spamcon address is designed for (I gave up fighting spam a long time ago when it became apparent that few ISPs really give a rats a**...try getting AOL to dump its spammers),  and it may be that we are speaking at cross purposes.

However, given that sneakemail is what it is...why do you need to mung the address when you place it here?

doesnt it filter spam out?  

See i am quite happy to place my spamcon addy here (the current one is 600d-nhu@disposable.spamcon.org) without any munging because i know that the spiders can do their worst and i wont get any spam for weeks.  and like sneakemail i can reply to real mail and it will be filtered through the system so the person to whom i reply will only ever see my spamcon addy.  of course, some spam will eventually filter through, and thats when the addy gets turned off, and i get a new address and start over.  

the spamcon address isnt designed to be given out to people as a real address, just for posting in public places, like this one.  

It might be valuable, in fact, to have both spamcon *and* sneakemail.

 

I have a thread open at YaBB support on this right now:

http://www.yabbforum.com/community/?board=ts;action=display;num=1013813017;start=0

 

No. All assigned addressses forward mail to you or "optionally" hang on to it for 30 days in a "mail damn", or 10 days in a "trash can", from which users can retrieve from should they think they missed something in there. I munged for "added protection since harvesters DO get addresses from these forums (watch out for Louis' L'Amour forum!)

Added protection. Sneakemail is sooooooooooooo EZ to use! I'll give yours a try. You'll LOVE sneakemail's interface too!

Regards

 

Yes, I went there and put in my two cents worth.

Regards

 

Thanks I already read it.