Julian said:
Yes they should be removed in clear text. It isn't rocket science to
use java or some other method to present a mailto link in a way that a
robot can't harvest. Otherwise use generic addresses like sales,
support and webmaster that spammers seeem to steer clear of.
For large businesses with an IT department who maintain an ongoing
capability for updating their sites, I'd agree. But there are also
literally millions of small businesses and individuals who have web sites
but do not have the luxury of an IT department, the knowledge to implement
what you are describing, or even the ability to do something like that in
some cases. For them, what you are suggesting is an entirely different
proposition which will cost them money, if they can do it at all.
By the way, I monitor several support/webmaster addresses for some of my
clients and I can assure you that they are NOT ignored by spammers.
Okay, stupid is putting it a bit strongly, but why add to the problem
when simple methods let you avoid doing so?
But then your simple methods end up being not so simple when implemented
on a wide-scale basis. Remember when munging first became popular? Lots of
people started using something like "rsimon at cris.com" and some of the
harvesters became smart enough to translate them? If everyone starts
munging their email address, how long do you think it will be before the
bots start trying to parse the most commonly used methods? What then? Keep
changing the munging method as the spammers adapt? It would then start
resembling the virus/antivirus model. An action/reaction loop, ad
infinitum.
And then there is the entire question of how you get this across to
newbies. Do you just leave them to fend for themselves? After all, they're
the ones who are most likely to click on something stupid and get infected
in the first place. They then become yet another conduit the spammers will
use to pump their junk out to everyone.
I don't particularly want, or expect, anyone to contact me by email as
a result of usenet postings, but if anyone has a burning need to,
there's a web URL in my sig and a contact form on the web site. That
provides a spam-free way for web visitors get in contact with me too
(and as an extra benefit avoids the possibility of a spam filter
sidelining their message.)
Herein lies the rub. I understand where you're coming from but I disagree
with your premise. You are basically offering three different ways to help
reduce the amount of spam being generated. One is to mung the address which
(IMHO) has several problems with it. A second is not to use an email
address at all which may work for you but I see that as a big step
backwards. The third option is the one you use by offering a web site
address. Besides adding in unnecessary steps to go through, it is also an
approach that many people simply do not have available to them.
Above and beyond that, I question just how much "bandwidth wastage" any of
your approaches will realistically remove. Usenet users are a relatively
small subset of the entire internet population to begin with. Your premise
is that if the spammers don't have those addresses to send to, then they
will send fewer junk emails. From what little I have read and seen, the
primary restriction on spammers outgoing traffic is always bandwidth
limitations and not the number of addresses they have to send to. If they
have fewer addresses, any bandwidth they would have saved is simply taken
up by pumping out more copies of the same spam, or entirely different spam
messages to those addresses that they do have.
To make a real dent in "wasted bandwidth" you have to affect spammers at
their source, not at their reception points. While we, as recipients, are
primarily concerned with what we see in our inboxes, there is little that
we as individuals can do to limit the overall problem. ISP's on the other
hand, can have a big impact. When Comcast shut down outgoing port 25
traffic a couple months ago, they cut the amount of spam generated from
their network by ~35%. That one act reduced the "wasted bandwidth" of
spammers by far more than any munging of email addresses by Usenet users
would do (IMHO).
