# Spam and avoiding having e-mail addresses harvested **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 2, 2002, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657 "2002-09-02T10:03:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/1 "2002-09-02T10:03:33Z")
Not much in ye olde SDMB database on this. Anyhoo, enough is enough, I’ve got to deal with this. Two problem areas: **Contact details (normally in the footer) on regular web sites** The only options that come immediately to mind here are; 1 – Using a Javscript programme that _allegedly_ thwarts harvesting programmes – never used one so I don’t know how well they work and any input would be helpful, or 2 – Putting the e-mail address on a graphic and requiring that people wanting to contact you cut and paste from that graphic (obviously, it would look like a normal e-mail address. I guess you just add 'C&P as a hint) **E-mail details in profiles on boards such as the SDMB** All I can think of at the moment is putting something like: Whoever AT Whatever Dot com but that’s so obvious I’m sure it won’t belong before that kind of construction is also harvested. Not ideal solutions – any ideas, experiences, recommendations to deal with this bloody nuisance once and for all ? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/2 "2002-09-02T10:22:49Z")
You could do it like this: **Your_banana_nameATyour_pineapple_[domain.com](http://domain.com) (please omit the fruit)** - I wouldn’t imagine that any bot would be sophisticated enough to know that your account doesn’t actually contain the word banana. ---
**Author:** ![SpaceDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spacedog/32/9932_2.png) [@SpaceDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceDog)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/3 "2002-09-02T10:34:51Z")
If you’re worried about e-mail on a website you run (i.e. the webmaster link) you could just do one of those ‘Contact Us’ forms. I’ve seen a few that don’t have the e-mail on the page (or in the source) anywhere – it depends what your ISP allows. For profiles either hide your e-mail or use a generic hotmail (or similar) one. This may involve you changing your e-mail on a regular basis. You could request that anyone who e-mails you includes something specific in the subject line so you can find important e-mails easily. Those are just my ideas, what **Mangetout** suggests is popular on newsgroups and similar. A friend told me of a similar variation something like … \*\*some_knickers_oneATsome_bra_[place.com](http://place.com) (please remove underware before using) \*\* … which I thought was cute. SD ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/4 "2002-09-02T11:10:03Z")
However: **Your_antispam_nameATyour_antispam_[domain.com](http://domain.com)**, which I’ve seen all over the place, is quite ulikely to be foolproof anymore; anything popular like that will be something that at least some of the bots will have been programmed to edit out ---
**Author:** ![Caught\_Work](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/919ad9/32.png) [@Caught\_Work](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caught_Work)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/5 "2002-09-02T11:10:59Z")
On your website try: ```auto ``` Which should produce the following: mailme with a clickable link to [myname@host.com](mailto:myname@host.com) This may or may not defeat the harvesters. Watch out for the occurrences of ‘"’ (single, double, single) which is needed in the href tag. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/6 "2002-09-02T11:13:30Z")
I’ve tried using an image to display the email address on my site, and I’m currently using a halfway-effective method which involves converting the address to the ASCII codes – the HTML source doesn’t look like an email address, but the browser renders it properly. This fools less sophisticated harvesters while still allowing people to copy-and-paste the address (but doesn’t fool sophisticated harvesters). There’s a fairly in-depth discussion of email encoding techniques for webmasters here – [Alistapart: winning the spam arms race](http://www.alistapart.com/stories/spam/) ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/7 "2002-09-02T11:44:48Z")
If you use an email address you _will_ get spam because any server through which the packets pass can harvest the address. So there is no way of absolutely preventing your address from getting on spam lists. By removing it from web pages you will diminish some of the incidence but not eliminate it. There are several ways to go about this. The safest is to just place the email address in graphic form but this means the user must key it in again and can make mistakes. Most address harvesters are just looking for the “@” character and if in the source code you use **@** instead the harvester will not recognize it and it will still work. You can use the same technique on the entire address if you are so inclined. This is how I have it: \ \\ as you can see the display is a graphic and the link is encoded. It could be that some harvesters can recognise the mailto tag or the encoded @ but it is better than nothing. In any case, if you use an email account, you _will_ get spam, so I don’t take too much trouble and just to filter out a good chunk before I even see it. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/8 "2002-09-02T11:53:56Z")
well, shoot! the html interprets my codes so you can see the characters but not the source code I posted. OK, let’s see if putting spaces between the characters preserves the codes: @ = & # 064 ; (six char from & to 😉 So my email is displayed correctly (as you can see above) and the mail link works fine but the source code looks like this: \ \ \ and I expect many harvesters would not recognise it. The main character to hide is the @. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/9 "2002-09-02T12:02:25Z")
**Sailor** – that’s the ASCII (I think) conversion I was talking about. Apparently it doesn’t fool the latest generation of harvesters. but in the meantime I haven’t noticed an increase in spam. ---
**Author:** ![trainwreck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/fbc32d/32.png) [@trainwreck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trainwreck)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/10 "2002-09-02T12:54:55Z")
If the bots now pull the words “nospam” or “spam” out of your address, would it work to make those words part of your address? something like “[spamnospambob342@whatever.com](mailto:spamnospambob342@whatever.com)”? JC ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/11 "2002-09-02T12:57:57Z")
That’s a damn clever idea. If you can’t disguise your address, make your address look like a disguise. I like that plan a lot. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/12 "2002-09-02T13:26:24Z")
DO the bots remove the words nospam? are we suppose to when contacting that person. I have a real address that has nospam in it - am I missing emails because people are deleting it? ---
**Author:** ![Go\_alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Go\_alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_alien)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/13 "2002-09-02T14:00:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by k2dave \* > \*\*DO the bots remove the words nospam? are we suppose to when contacting that person. I have a real address that has nospam in it - am I missing emails because people are deleting it? \*\* No. People just don’t want to email you.😃 ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/14 "2002-09-02T14:32:56Z")
There is an obvious problem (I think) regarding the e-mail addresses in our board profiles. Without a valid (and harvestable) e-mail address, how would we get e-mail notifications of responses to threads ? …does this make the banana/apple/knickers/bra ideas less helpful or have I got the wrong end of the fruit/underwear ? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/15 "2002-09-02T14:49:50Z")
You have the notification turned on? Are you _nuts_? ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/16 "2002-09-02T15:05:20Z")
It’s actually not that bad because you only get _one_ notification per thread until you respond again in that thread (I think that’s how it works…at the moment I don’t know if I’m coming or going…). Having tried the notification in ‘off’ and ‘on’ mode, it seems the only sane way of keep abreast of everything…probably a bit late for the sanity now though…where was I… ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2002, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/17 "2002-09-02T16:25:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by trainwreck \* > If the bots now pull the words “nospam” or “spam” out of your address, would it work to make those words part of your address? something like “[spamnospambob342@whatever.com](mailto:spamnospambob342@whatever.com)”? I have my own mail server and can create nonce addresses at will. I actually tried this a couple years ago: spam\*\*\*@… as a real address. I have even posted to Usenet using this. I had assumed that I would have to kill it after a couple months and start a new one but it is still almost completely spam free! I have almost never gotten 2 spams from the same source. Until recently… Some genealogy scam site started sending me HUGE files, 1 per day. I quickly blocked that site completely. It really does appear to work well. But nonce addresses are also good. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2002, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/18 "2002-09-03T00:52:31Z")
> [@](#): > > There is an obvious problem (I think) regarding the e-mail addresses in our board profiles. Without a valid (and harvestable) e-mail address, how would we get e-mail notifications of responses to threads ? Not actually a problem. The board software knows your address, and can use it to send you notifications, but if you have your settings set to “don’t display e-mail address”, then no person or harvester visiting the site can get at it. If the site is cracked open completely somehow, the address is there in the database, but should that happen, we’ve got some big problems anyway. Even if you have you address visible here, there are still some measures the board software takes to protect against spammers. You’ve noticed that the e-mail link under a post doesn’t actually contain the person’s address directly? A harvester would need to access 50 different pages to get 50 e-mail addresses. Of course, with the number of vB boards out there now, it’s possible that some harvisters are programmed to do this now. If you want to be completely safe, hide your address. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2002, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/19 "2002-09-03T10:30:31Z")
You can send ICQ pager messages by email in the form of [XXXXXXX@pager.icq.com](mailto:XXXXXXX@pager.icq.com) and they will pop up in your ICQ. I have had that address up on my webpage for years and have not received a single spam. Nobody uses it and it was never found on the web page. Yesterday my girlfriend was having problems with her computer and could not use ICQ but she could use another computer to send me an email so I told her she could send me a short message by email to my ICQ pager address and I would phone her. She used that address a couple of times yesterday and I have already received a couple of spams there which just goes to show you that email addresses are easily harvested as packets pass through servers and there’s nothing you can do about it but filter spam as it arrives. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2002, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-and-avoiding-having-e-mail-addresses-harvested/126657/20 "2002-09-03T12:09:05Z")
MYPANTS doesn’t work As in [yourmypantsname@yourmypantsdomain.com](mailto:yourmypantsname@yourmypantsdomain.com) - Remove my pants to reply. This is such a commonly used attempt to thwart the Spambots that they now filter out the words mypants. Just a helpful hint 🙂 Don’t know if knickers, etc has the same problem.