Posted by John Hosking on 09/03/07 16:34

JL wrote:
>
> The other day, I encountered a site with a mailto link like this:
>
> <a
> href="mailto:&#105;&#110;&#102;&#111;&#064;&#101;&#120;&#097;&#109;&#112;&#108;&#101;&#046;&#099;&#111;&#109;">
> &#105;&#110;&#102;&#111;&#064;&#101;&#120;&#097;&#109;&#112;&#108;&#101;&#046;&#099;&#111;&#109;
> </a>
>
> Will this actually prevent anything from harvesting the email address?

Would it prevent *you* from doing so (if you were so inclined)? No
(presumably), because you know what the &#102; codes are and can
translate them back to the real ASCII-style human-readable address. A
computer program would only make it quicker for you.

This example is weaker than some, because the mailto: is not obscured
and an address harvesting program (which is made to do just that) will
see the mailto: and probably grab the rest, too. The spam is on its way!

When I do this, I munge the whole content C of the href="C".

When all or most harvesters are programmed to detect/translate this
kindof munging, the technique will be useless (or worse, because of the
bulk). But right now, I think most of the harvesters just pass right
over, going for the multitudes of more obvious addresses. There's no
shortage of that "low-hanging fruit".

--
John
Pondering the value of the UIP: http://improve-usenet.org/

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