On e-mail spams (Was: Re: Comparing methods)

[Simos Xenitellis <simos74 gmx net>]

O/H Danilo Åegan ÎÎÏÎÏÎ:
> Yesterday at 18:17, Simos Xenitellis wrote:
>
>   
> > There is one thing I would like to comment on, the use of e-mail
> > addresses in HREF links.
> >     
>
> Those will be replaced with links to eg. /people/simos where we'll
> list your contact e-mail(s). 
>
>   
> > This is very often the source of spam.
> >     
>
> However, note that Gnome servers have excellent spam protection (much
> better than gmx.net one, in my experience, since my @gnome.org is
> forwarded to @gmx.net ;). Also, generally, you can't avoid spam today.
>
> I receive spam on a completely private e-mail address I have
> never-ever given to more than a dozen people, and all of them are
> aware enough not to publish it anywhere.  Probably if I used some
> obfuscated alias it wouldn't get found.
>
> [btw, I found greylisting to filter more than 90% of spam for me]
>   
Spammers generally collect e-mails addresses from Websites or Web 
directories of users.
Once your e-mail is in their list, you cannot get it out and you are 
stuck in a loop.
In some cases they "guess" potential e-mail addresses; for example they 
know
that there exists "danilo" in several mail servers, therefore there is 
high probability a "danilo"
in gmail as well (I do not know if you have such a gmail address).
A good mail server should not reply straight away that an e-mail exists 
or not. It should receive the mail
and send the the Delivery Failed message after some hours, when the 
spammer is offline.
That's what gmail does and it's good.
In other cases, one of your contacts may get a spamming trojan on their 
computer
that sends off spams. As far as I know, this lasts as long as the 
computer is infected.
Spamming is not inevitable.

To see whether your e-mail address has been publicised on the Web, one 
way is to google for it.
> > An easy fix is to use Javascript to obfuscate the e-mail
> > addresses. This will require
> > JavaScript capable Web browsers in order to view the addresses.
> > For more on this, google on "javascript obfuscate e-mail address".
> >     
>
> That sounds a bit limiting, IMO.  If it's really a problem, we can
> simply remove e-mails, or provide a direct "contact by e-mail form" so
> you'll get coordinator e-mail only if he actually responds ;)
>   
That would be a very option as well.

Cheers,
Simos