email address in profile

why do you modify it?

[Markus]

I have just taken a look at my profile and I've seen that my email address is often modified. I think it's okay when you change the "@" to "at" or the "." to "dot" sometimes, but displaying potential spam abuse addresses of my ISP annoys me a bit. Don't you think that this is a privacy issue? IMO, everybody who gives away his email address on the web knows that he'll receive spam. I can live with that.

[lazerzubb]

If i am not wrong, that only shows up when you are not logged in, and it will appear on all profiles, so only you will see it. (brett please confirm)

I think it's good because non-registered users will not be able to view your email (There is a lot of spam bots out there, check the robots.txt for this site, and you will get the hint ;) )

So if you have a spambot trying to snatch emails, it will store the abuse email adress for the ISP it's using and send spam to that one, which will probably lead to a quickly closedown.

[Markus]

That was quick, Laz :)

I'm never logged in when I just lurk. And everybody can see the the email address even if there is an "at" instead of an "@". My concern is something like "[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]". I don't want my ISP to get any mail that was intended for me. If it is spam or not. Neither do I want anyone to see that address of my ISP since I can be identified by that when I surf the web. I don't want to be fussy about the whole thing because nobody will be interested in if I visit his site or not, but I just don't like idea of it.

[lazerzubb]

You got that wrong.

If you have AOL as your ISP provider, and you lurk, if you view the Profile for Markus or Lazerzubb the email field will be "[e-mail]"

If you have BT as your ISP provider, it will say "[e-mail]" instead.
(That's how i think it works)

Also i think Brett have worked out some system, so if you hit a profile page more than certain amont of time, it will show different email variations as you mentioned in the first post.
I think the first email showed though (If you haven't viewed any profile before), is the correct one.

The "Spam@yourisp" email might just appear if the ISP you are using is listed on Brett's PR 0 list ;) (If someone have been targeting webmasterworld with a email bot or something like it before from your ISP adress)

[edited by: lazerzubb at 11:01 pm (utc) on Jan. 4, 2003]

[JayC]

Markus, I believe that the address shown is at your ISP only because you are looking at it. If someone else looks at your profile page, they'll see that address (when the modification happens) as being at their ISP.

So your concern that someone can see which ISP you use is misplaced... only you are seeing that, and you presumably already know. :)

[Markus]

Sorry, I'm just a dumb idiot :). I really thought they track my ISP to display it for everyone. I gotta get away from this computer for today...

[Brett_Tabke]

That's a common misconception Markus. There are several other tricks in the bag, but the general point is for the spam harvestors that raid the system, to report themselves to their own isp for spamming. They can't know all the variations on the emails people use, which gives ample opportunity to load them up with mickey addresses.

[lorax]

Sorry, I'm just a dumb idiot

No. You're not. I didn't know Brett did that either - pretty tricky young man...;)