Email Mask -- Hides Email Address from SPAMers

[jim evans]

This Program Lets You Hide Your Email Address On Your Website From
SPAMers

This program hides your website Email address from these SPAMers while
letting real visitors send you Email.

Consumer Reports says the most common way SPAMers get Email addresses
is by "harvesting" them from public web pages. They do this with
software that roams the Internet searching the hidden code that
underlies web pages looking for character patterns that have the form
of email addresses. Email Mask masks your address so these programs
don't find them.

http://www.factsfacts.com/EmailMask

This is a brand new program. It is free. If you try it, please drop
me a line and tell me how it worked for you.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

This Program Lets You Hide Your Email Address On Your Website From
SPAMers

This program hides your website Email address from these SPAMers while
letting real visitors send you Email.

Consumer Reports says the most common way SPAMers get Email addresses
is by "harvesting" them from public web pages. They do this with
software that roams the Internet searching the hidden code that
underlies web pages looking for character patterns that have the form
of email addresses. Email Mask masks your address so these programs
don't find them.

This is a brand new program. It is free. If you try it, please drop
me a line and tell me how it worked for you.

Prospective users should note that it's JS, so everyone's not going to
be able to use it (without going into the source, and digging out the
email address by hand).

 

[jim evans]

Prospective users should note that it's JS, so everyone's not going to
be able to use it (without going into the source, and digging out the
email address by hand).

I don't understand what you're saying. You don't "dig out" anything,
and it doesn't require understanding anything about JavaScript or
HTML. It's set up as a cookbook operation. It's specifically
designed so *anybody* can use it. It generates some JavaScript,
copies it to your clipboard and you simply paste directly into the
location where you want the address to be with no understanding of the
JavaScript itself.

Three friends who are complete webpage novices (have no clue about
HTML much less JavaScript) used it and reported no difficulty using
it.

Before anyone is discouraged by your comments they should see how it
works.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

On 18 Aug 2003 22:55:03 GMT, Blinky the Shark <[email protected]>
wrote:

I don't understand what you're saying. You don't "dig out" anything,
and it doesn't require understanding anything about JavaScript or
HTML. It's set up as a cookbook operation. It's specifically

I didn't say the user *had* to know anything about JS or HTML.

designed so *anybody* can use it. It generates some JavaScript,
copies it to your clipboard and you simply paste directly into the
location where you want the address to be with no understanding of the
JavaScript itself.

And if the person browsing the site doesn't have JS enabled?

Three friends who are complete webpage novices (have no clue about
HTML much less JavaScript) used it and reported no difficulty using
it.

They were browsing with JS enabled, right?

Before anyone is discouraged by your comments they should see how it
works.

How it works" is with JS, right?

I didn't say it was a piece of shit. I just said, after looking at it,
and for those who might not think of it, that it won't work unless the
site visitor is running JS.

 

[jim evans]

I misunderstood your point. I understand now.

You're right a visitor has to have JavaScript enabled in their browser
to send an email, but if the visitor doesn't have it enabled it issues
this announcement:

"Email uses JavaScript to defend against SPAM.
You must enable JavaScript to contact me."

jim

 

[jim evans]

I think the point being made was that not everyone has Javascript
enabled, in which case 'digging' out the address would be necessary.

You're right he meant if the page visitor doesn't have it enabled in
their browser the email address won't work. I thought he was talking
about the page maker, instead he was talking about the page
viewer/visitor.

jim

 

[jim evans]

I've added a note to the instruction page explaining the point you
made.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

I just said, after looking at it, and for those who might not
think of it, that it won't work unless the site visitor is running
JS.

Right. Imo, it's better to just use html but encode the ASCII
characters as hex and/or decimal. Reports indicate that just
encoding the @ symbol will foil the harvestbots, but I feel better
about a more extreme version of this method, using a mix of hex and
dec encodings for the whole mailto link. (I guess oct or bin could
be used also.)

<http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/obfuscator/> has an online
converter that does this well, outputting html that can be cut and
pasted.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

<news:[email protected]>:

Right. Imo, it's better to just use html but encode the ASCII
characters as hex and/or decimal. Reports indicate that just

That's what I do at blinkynet. But I *have* seen apparently
knowledgeable posters in the HTML and/or webmaster groups talking
about some harvesters that can interpret that.

encoding the @ symbol will foil the harvestbots, but I feel better
about a more extreme version of this method, using a mix of hex and
dec encodings for the whole mailto link. (I guess oct or bin could
be used also.)

I haven't yet graduated to the mixed approach.[1]

<http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/obfuscator/> has an online
converter that does this well, outputting html that can be cut and
pasted.

I used some such site, but I see I didn't bookmark it. Bad shark!
Thanks for the link. <bookmarking!>

Did you notice that in the page title, "obfuscator" is misspelled?
Dunno if it's intentional or not. I suspect not, though -- this *is*
the 'Net.

[1] <clickety click-click> I have now.

 

[Paul Bowlay]

This Program Lets You Hide Your Email Address On Your Website From SPAMers

No need for a program -- just add these lines of code to the web page and
you're done. (Note: Remove the leading ';' from each line to enable it!).

;<script language="JavaScript">
;<!-- Begin
;document.write('<a href="'+'mailto:'+'YourName'+'@'+'hotmail'+'.'+'com'+'">'+'Your Name'+'</a>');
;//-->
;// End -->
;</script>

 

[Blinky the Shark]

No need for a program -- just add these lines of code to the web page and
you're done. (Note: Remove the leading ';' from each line to enable it!).

;<script language="JavaScript">
;<!-- Begin
;document.write('<a href="'+'mailto:'+'YourName'+'@'+'hotmail'+'.'+'com'+'">'+'Your Name'+'</a>');
;//-->
;// End -->
;</script>

Same caveat, of course, as for jim's program -- JS dependency. I
mention it for the sake of consistency.

 

[Paul Bowlay]

Same caveat, of course, as for jim's program -- JS dependency. I
mention it for the sake of consistency.

Yep, I only read the JS thread after I posted my response to the OP.
I doubt many PCs would have JS disabled these days anyway... makes
it kinda hard to surf the net!

 

[Paul Bowlay]

Yep, I only read the JS thread after I posted my response to the OP.
I doubt many PCs would have JS disabled these days anyway... makes
it kinda hard to surf the net!

BTW, check out my Usenet e-mail address above -- stops spambots from
sending me mail (a filter deletes all 'replace.with.info' mail) and
still makes it obvious for real people on how to contact me.

 

[DC]

BTW, check out my Usenet e-mail address above -- stops spambots from
sending me mail (a filter deletes all 'replace.with.info' mail) and
still makes it obvious for real people on how to contact me.

Not obvious to this *real* person.

 

[Paul Bowlay]

Not obvious to this *real* person.

What? You can't work out my address from (e-mail address removed) ?

 

[Brian Tillman]

You're right a visitor has to have JavaScript enabled in their browser

to send an email, but if the visitor doesn't have it enabled it issues
this announcement:

"Email uses JavaScript to defend against SPAM.
You must enable JavaScript to contact me."

Of course, this means that anyone who is security conscious won't be
contacting you. Only someone who doesn't care what gets harvested from
their machine browses the web with javascript enabled.
--
Brian Tillman Internet: Brian.Tillman at smiths-aerospace dot com
Smiths Aerospace Addresses modified to prevent SPAM.
3290 Patterson Ave. SE, MS 1B3 Replace "at" with "@", "dot" with "."
Grand Rapids, MI 49512-1991
This opinion doesn't represent that of my company

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Yep, I only read the JS thread after I posted my response to the OP.
I doubt many PCs would have JS disabled these days anyway... makes
it kinda hard to surf the net!

You might be surprised.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Seems to me that an easy way to accomplish this would be to make a
.jpg of your email address and put *that* on your website. Spambots
probably can't read such a thing. One could even make the image non
OCR compatible easily enough.

Sure, but the mousemonkeys would have to actually enter it with their
keyboards. Might be daunting.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 11:00:21 -0400, "Brian Tillman"

Possibly, but I suspect most people who browse the net now-a-days have
JS enabled. Or, if not they can enable it temporarily to send the
email, as implied by the above message.

Just out of idle curiosity: you haven't tested and tweaked your site for
text browsers, either, have you?

 

[Andy Mabbett]

Seems to me that an easy way to accomplish this would be to make a .jpg
of your email address and put *that* on your website. Spambots probably
can't read such a thing.

Providing, of course, that one doesn't want one's page to be accessed by
blind people using screen readers, or anyone with a text- only browser,
or images switched off (because they have a slow connection, such as via
a mobile phone), or by a search engine, or...