****** Harvesters

[Perplexed]

My spam email rate has just gone up from about one per day to about 50 per day.

I guess I got harvested recently.

I want emails from my site's visitors but how can I cut out all this **** without making it too dificult for them?

[claus]

Well, you can remove all email addys from your sites and replace them with contact forms (including telephone numbers and snailmail if you please)

I personally try to avoid printing mail addresses on any website for the same reason. Forms work fine for me.

/claus

[StanBo]

Or, if you absolutely need to make your e-mail accessible right from a web-page, make it like <a href="mailto:name&#64;domain.com">name&#64;domain.com</a> works quite fine this way too.

[Perplexed]

Sorry StanBo, I work at quite a basic level.

What exactly is this "&#64" ?

I have always used forms for email but added the email address recently ( ah, so.... ) because many people apparently dont like forms.

And as a backup question.... If I do this or only use forms am I ever going to get off the lists that must already be in circulation? I guess its going to be a damage limitation exercise.

[2oddSox]

Perplexed,

the &#64; is the ascii version of the '@'

I suppose the theory is that harvesters are specifically looking for the '@' symbol.

2odd...

[d_fused]

I guess its going to be a damage limitation exercise.

IMHO you can't get off those lists. Actually, once you ask someone to remove your address from their list, you will start receiving even more spam in your inbox. Simply because they know this box is alive and someone is reading the messages that come in.

d_

[Kaspian]

I'd be happy if gov't. clamped down more on this stuff, issuing fines whenever possible. Preferably gigantic ones that will utterly crush these people and force them into bankruptcy. :)

[claus]

>> damage limitation

Yes. Don't even open the mails, just delete them. Clever spammers confirm adresses with web bugs or embedded pictures. NEVER reply or use any link in any of them. If you can check headers or view the source without opening the mails, send them off to spamcop. There's even spam filtering databases you can subscribe to.

/claus

[MWpro]

Try checking out this thread for some more ideas on how to display the email address but avoid the spam bots. [webmasterworld.com ]

[wkitty42]

>> damage limitation
Yes. Don't even open the mails, just delete them.

if you must open them to delete or forward them to spamcop or another reporting service, make it a point to set your mail reader to OFFLINE mode before wading in... its become my modius operandi... check email, switch to offline mode, read email, forward whatever, switch to online mode, send unsent emails, carry on with life...

it also helps that i use mozilla and have it set to not show offsite images and javascript is turned off in mail and news...

[Bhakti]

I used to check my email, and now I check my spam. I just got through revising my clients sites to use contact forms instead of advertised email links.

Early last year we went through and replaced all text addies with graphics of the addy text. Then the bots were reprogrammed to read the source code for "mailto:" tags, so my clients (finally!) opted for contact forms that use scripts allowing visitors to email them without showing addresses in the source code.

If only it was illegal to forge email headers nationwide. Unfortunately the most succes in suing spammers I have read about recently is in suing them for fraud because they were using forged headers! I've also noticed more spam is coming from servers located outside the US, so if it was made illegal in one nation, they would just move to other countries. I'm afraid wiping spammers out is going to have to be an international effort.

[kwngian]

I create a email.js file with the following content ;

<!--
var first = 'ma';
var second = 'il';
var third = 'to:';
var address = 'username';
var domain = 'userdomain.com';
document.write('<a href="');
document.write(first+second+third);
document.write(address);
document.write('&#64;');
document.write(domain);
document.write('" title="User Name">');
document.write('User Name<\/a>');
// -->

then address it on the html page with the following ;

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="email.js"></script>

Hope that helps.

[TheDoctor]

IMHO you can't get off those lists.

The lists also seem to get recycled. I received a couple of spams this week sent to an address that was removed from our web site a year or more ago.

The lists are, of course, commodities in their own right, bought and sold for a fast buck. In fact, my impression is that the real money in spamming is not made by those trying to sell Viagra or banned CDs but by those selling the harvested email lists.