Subject: RE: Working Group web page spam

From: "Nelson, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:29:56 -0400

> > Something like "pusateri at bangj dot com" would be a good
compromise.
> 
> That's what I was assuming you were proposing, and exactly what I was
> hoping not to see.

Sadly, I think there's no practical way to hide from spam artists.

Once you post an e-mail message to any public forum, including an IETF
mailing list, you're a target.  The IETF mailing lists are archived on
the web, and the e-mail address "data miners" have figured out how to
web-crawl those archives looking for fresh addresses.

---

From: "Nelson, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 17:16:15 -0400

> In other words, it seems to inconvenience only the legitimate users
> while doing what appears to be little lasting harm to the abusers.

I tend to agree.

One tactic I've employed on one organization's web site is to post
e-mail addresses as graphical images (.jpg) so that the harvesters would
have to resort to text recognition processing.  Not sure that slows them
down very much though, and it forces users to copy the addresses using
pencil and paper, or by retyping them manually.