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pambesteder
Posts: 70
Joined: 1/4/2003
Status: offline
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Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 13:11:06
Hi All!
I have taken the advice of some on the forum to cut down on the amount of SPAM I receive on my business email.
What I've done is deleted any reference to my email from the website and instead have created a form to submit questions, etc.
I'd say SPAM has decreased 90%.
But can anyone tell me HOW spammers get my email address IN THE FIRST PLACE? The only place I have it is on my site. I have not published it anywhere else.
Do they visit every site and then look for email addresses or do they have some kind of program that looks over the millions of website searching for the email address?
How long after I've eliminated my physical email address from the website can I expect almost no SPAM?
Thanks for your replies!
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markhawker
Posts: 511
Joined: 5/31/2004
From: Leeds, UK
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 13:53:17
Hi, when Dan comes online you should have a word with him. He's in the process of making a site targeted specifically at SPAM prevention. SPAMmers as I'm aware will send robots to trawl through the web in search of e-mail addresses on people's sites, then store them on a database ready to be processed and exploited. Any kind of newsletter etc. that you sign up for could, maybe not as likely, be prone to SPAM. Anyway, I'm sure Dan will provide you will a more in-depth analogy.
Mark
_____________________________
Mark Hawker
my business - http://www.thebubblejungle.com/
facebook - http://www.thebubblejungle.com/facebook/
web hosting - http://www.crucialp.com/
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Larry M.
Posts: 2766
Joined: 2/20/2003
From: Greenville, South Carolina, USA
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 15:24:43
<<What I've done is deleted any reference to my email from the website and instead have created a form to submit questions, etc>>
pambesteder,
This seems to be the best way to head-off "scraper" programs. It's unlikely any low-life spammer would take the time to manually examine your site for an e-mail address through the component reply forms when there are too many easy e-mails to be obtained using spam bot programs.
I can't offer much encouragement as to how long it will take to get NO spam. My understanding is once the validity of your e-mail address is determined, it's statistically sold and will, thereafter, multiply itself ad infinitum.
I'm very interested in Dan's opinion and what he's come up with to try and stay a step ahead these bottom feeders.
_____________________________
Larry M.
Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones.
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pambesteder
Posts: 70
Joined: 1/4/2003
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 15:57:58
Thanks Larry
I have never replied to any of the SPAM emails I've received, so I'm not sure how they can validate it as a good email.
I too am looking forwarding to reading what Dan says!
Thanks
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dankos
Posts: 420
Joined: 1/10/2004
From: New York City
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 16:04:03
quote:
But can anyone tell me HOW spammers get my email address IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Spammers send bots to trawl the Web for e-mail addresses. If the good guys, such as Google and Yahoo, do it to examine the content of your Web pages, so can the bad ones. That's why e-mail addresses rarely appear on the larger sites. Sadly almost everyone is forced to use forms to receive mail. If you're like most other Web sites, myself included, you'll find yourself setting up temporary e-mail addresses to send the mail also.
As a bit of amusement I wrote a C program that generated several text files containing hundreds of thousands of bogus e-mail addresses just to keep them busy.
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dpf
Posts: 7123
Joined: 11/12/2003
From: India-napolis
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 19:10:27
quote:
I have never replied to any of the SPAM emails I've received, so I'm not sure how they can validate it as a good
actually, the fact that your email service didnt kick it back as a non-existant address is all the verification they need.
_____________________________
Dan
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dpf
Posts: 7123
Joined: 11/12/2003
From: India-napolis
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 19:12:51
Im not at all sure that substituting a mailto: form over an email address accomplishes anything.. remember, the spiders they send look at your code, not your page as a human sees it..its as if they do a view/source and dont see the page as the browser paints it. In a standard html mailto: your address is right there to be read.
_____________________________
Dan
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Larry M.
Posts: 2766
Joined: 2/20/2003
From: Greenville, South Carolina, USA
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 20:08:26
<<actually, the fact that your email service didnt kick it back as a non-existant address is all the verification they need>>
Dan,
What I thought - the fact that it didn't "bounce" means it's good.
In the absence of component forms, what's your opinion of unicode e-mail masking programs such as: http://www.fantomaster.com/fantomasSuite/mailShield/famshieldsv-e.cgi ?
_____________________________
Larry M.
Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones.
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dankos
Posts: 420
Joined: 1/10/2004
From: New York City
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/3/2004 20:49:20
quote:
Im not at all sure that substituting a mailto: form over an email address accomplishes anything.. remember, the spiders they send look at your code, not your page as a human sees it..its as if they do a view/source and dont see the page as the browser paints it. In a standard html mailto: your address is right there to be read.
If you're referring to my use of a form to submit messages, I don't use mailto:. Instead I stow the message into a file which is later FTP'd to my machine. No e-mail address is encoded anywhere on the page.
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Giomanach
Posts: 6113
Joined: 11/19/2003
From: England
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/4/2004 9:14:43
Right, here we go
Mark - Thanks for the reference
He is right, I am in the process of creating a site targetted at the SPAM removal. At the moment, there is no sure fire way to end SPAM through e-mails, no-one has taken the time/created the tect to do so
quote:
But can anyone tell me HOW spammers get my email address IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Where do I start. As has been said, spam-harvesting web-bots/spiders trawl through webs looking for the almighty @domain.com and transmit that address back to a database, which controls a mailing list, which controls the medical supplement emails (you all know what I'm talking about)
The are also bots thatuse online contact forms, to send emails, or they scan them to pull out the email addresses, there are some that sit on servers waiting for the email addresses to hit, and they just send them away etc.
And, the most annoying one, are the ones that sit on shared web servers. You don't have to give away any address details, they just need your domain, and they will find you. You don't even have to have domain, all you need is an email address with you ISP.
Pam - Seeing as you've managed to knock out around 90% of it, you're making good progress. I'm managing to keep arouind 95% out at the moment, and am working on ways to eliminate it for good.
quote:
<<actually, the fact that your email service didnt kick it back as a non-existant address is all the verification they need>>
Dan,
What I thought - the fact that it didn't "bounce" means it's good.
Larry is infact 100% correct here. If they get the mailer daemon email, that addy doesn't exist, if they don't, they will send and send and send.
Steps being taken to prevent SPAM
As you all know there are hundreds of programs out there to help you "filter" out the SPAM etc, but in time, these will become obsolete, due to the content, subject and emails constantly changing.
Mr Bill Gates has stated in a recent news reprt that he wants to make SPAMming expensive, but what he doesn't realise is, to make that expensive, he has to make email expensive for us all.
I am currently looking for books/tutorials etc ion making the web-bots/spiders so I can look at creating several myself to "search and destroy" the harvesters, I will also be providing support/advice at http://www.giomanach.com/anti-spam The web is still very much under construction, I have provided forums, and download sections. I will in the near future have articles up on prevention of receiving SPAM etc.
If anyone wants any advice now, I recommend you email me, and I'll see what I can do for you
Dan
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dpf
Posts: 7123
Joined: 11/12/2003
From: India-napolis
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/4/2004 14:26:07
quote:
But we are both mentally about the same age.........4
Daniel! I resent that! my behaviour is clearly indicative of a 12 yr old.
_____________________________
Dan
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dpf
Posts: 7123
Joined: 11/12/2003
From: India-napolis
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/4/2004 15:50:24
quote:
And why do they always say your christian name in full when you've done something wrong?
Because it bugs you!!!! lol
_____________________________
Dan
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markhawker
Posts: 511
Joined: 5/31/2004
From: Leeds, UK
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/5/2004 4:50:34
quote:
quote:
And why do they always say your christian name in full when you've done something wrong?
Suits me fine! I've never had a problem with that!
Probably something psychological the fact you prefer to be called Dan, so that's like your comfort alias for your real name Daniel. So when someone doesn't call you by your friendly name it offends you!
OK, I'll stop now!
_____________________________
Mark Hawker
my business - http://www.thebubblejungle.com/
facebook - http://www.thebubblejungle.com/facebook/
web hosting - http://www.crucialp.com/
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JacieClaeys
Posts: 148
Joined: 7/13/2004
From: Henderson,TX
Status: offline
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RE: Stopping SPAM - 7/14/2004 18:17:49
I use a free encoder and it has seemed to make a big difference.
It is really simple to use
http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html
_____________________________
Jacie
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"It's never the tigers that get you...it's always the gnats"
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