Real Names, Real Spam and Real Birding

["Tim Murphy" <>]

On the Birds Queensland Site ( http://www.birdsqueensland.org.au/ ) I obfuscate all email addresses into a _javascript_ function.

 

<script language="_javascript_" type="text/_javascript_">
<!--
hedX = "<a href=''>");
document.write(emailname + "&#64;" + emailserver + "</a>");
}

// -->
</script

 

Then in the main body I place a call  (note that the @ is show as &#64 and that the two parameters are back to front).

 

<script language="_javascript_" type="text/_javascript_"><!--
dr("dod.com.au","sparrow");
// -->
</script>

 

I use a different function name though. This is not totally secure (for that use a picture with a line through it like Yahoo group registration) but it is pretty close.

 

This could be done automatically in a Perl script.

 

Tim Murphy

 

-----Original Message-----
From: [On Behalf Of Tony Russell
Sent: Friday, 12 November 2004 8:38 AM
To: 'John Gamblin'; 'Russell Woodford'; 'birding aus'
Subject: RE: [BIRDING-AUS] Real Names, Real Spam and Real Birding

Well, I doesn’t !     Gives I the shites.

 

Wallie

MB 45.8

 

-----Original Message-----
From: [ On Behalf Of John Gamblin
Sent: Friday, 12 November 2004 8:54 AM
To: Russell Woodford; birding aus
Subject: Re: [BIRDING-AUS] Real Names, Real Spam and Real Birding

 

But Rusty lub I like spam? with a bit of chutney wedged twix some well buttered fresh bread rolls ....

Russell Woodford <> wrote:

 

OK everyone - time to drop this thread I think. We'll leave the archives as they are for now - I agree with Andrew that they provide a useful resource to many people who never subscribe to the mailing list. I was interested in his comments about his "dummy" address that doesn't get any spam despite being represented on the archive. In other words:

*** posting to birding-aus doesn't automatically get your address on
spam lists. ***

The most likely reasons for getting spam are:
Signing up for competitions and offers online
Signing up to game sites, chat sites, blogs, etc
Using webmail (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo, etc - although GMail seems a lot
better - no spam from my GMail account yet)

Having your name as your account name (e.g. gets MUCH more spam than my other dodo accounts) The same can be said for account names that can be constructed easily by a text generator:

OR etc

It's very easy to write a program to generate thousands of possible names like these, then send them all the same message... voila! Instant Spam! It would be interesting to see how little spam is received by people with - or _ in their account names. That's usually enough to fool the auto account name generators.

Anyway - this mailing list is about BIRDS and BIRDWATCHING - so enough from me, and enough of this topic on the list!

Cheers
Rusty

Russell Woodford
Birding-Aus List Owner

Geelong Victoria Australia
http://www.birding-aus.org

 

 

JAG waddles off singing:
"Owl can I live with sorry?"
"Owl can I live until tomorrow,"
"Owl can you mend a broken heart,"
"Owl can you stop the rain fall lynn,"

Bee Gees for ever

 

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