antioch said:
Hello Ted
You were onto this one quick.
I would have replied as quick but the phone rang.
Thanks for the info - I thought it would be stupidly simple.
Funny you should ask though - yep I use O.E. ;-)
Thank you again - it is done.
Rgds
Antioch
P.S. I do keep trying - honest.
Remember to munge the *domain* (and optionally munge the username, too).
Remember that in providing an e-mail address with a valid domain that you
are energizing spam gets directed to that valid domain. So help out the
e-mail providers by not energizing spam to target their domain. If the spam
never makes it to their domain, they don't have to waste any resources
handling it. First munge the domain so that spam can't find the domain to
even attempt delivery.
When you munge the domain, check that it doesn't actually exist. Even if it
is registered but no site currently uses it, it may get used later. Rather
than munge your e-mail address (assuming you even want to divulge one) as
(e-mail address removed), you should use
(e-mail address removed) (hyphens are used because
underscores aren't allowed in domain names, so a spambot may decide to
auto-strip anything between illegal characters in a domain). You could
optionally also munge your username but a single munge is usually
sufficient.
It may be possible to not even use an e-mail address. Some NNTP servers
will accept a post without an e-mail address in the From header (so you can
put any string you want in that header). Some do require a string that is
syntaxed like an e-mail address but may only be looking for
(e-mail address removed) so you could put anything you want in any string. In
that case, and if you aren't interested in ever taking newsgroup discussions
offline via e-mail, you could use something like (e-mail address removed)
or (e-mail address removed) which are special in that mail cannot be delivered
to them; however, some NNTP servers won't let you use those special .invalid
TLD (top-level domain) or the example.com domain so you need to use another
string (but hopefully doesn't point at an existing domain, registered or
not).
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/munad.htm
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/mungfaq.html
http://www.mailmsg.com/SPAM_munging.htm
You might also consider creating and using a special account that is used
only to submit posts (provided you want to show an e-mail address, munged or
not, or that your NNTP server requires something that looks like an e-mail
address). Although you munge your e-mail address, there are trolls or
pueriles that will unmunge your e-mail address and post it. Most times
their action is ineffective because rare few spambots read the body of the
posts. If you use a special e-mail account that lets you define server-side
rules, you can check for the presence of a magic string or passcode in, say,
the Subject header. If it isn't there, their message gets automatically
deleted upon delivery because the server-side rule is always active. You
can also change the passcode whenever you want. In that case, with the
server-side rule, you don't even have to bother munging your e-mail address.
The spambots don't read the body of posts or, for those that do, they don't
know how to follow instructions, so the spammer never gets the instruction
to add the passcode to the Subject header. So anyone that unmunges your
e-mail address and tries to expose it to spambots still won't result in you
getting more spam (the domain will get it but your rule deletes it). The
spammer's list only has the e-mail address that the malcontent unmunged in
their post. It does require that good senders include the passcode but they
are already asked to unmunge your e-mail address so it isn't much more
effort to request. It does, however, require that you maintain a separate
account used just for newsgroup posts. Of couse, if you don't even provide
an e-mail address then spam won't ever reach your Inbox.
At one time, I used to use an unmunged e-mail address in my posts to
eliminate the hassle by any good sender in having to do any editing (because
some e-mail client don't let you edit the string but instead wipe it out
when you attempt to edit it and the user has to manually enter the whole
string). However, that means my e-mail provider's domain will get targeted
by spam that was energized by divuling an unmunged domain in my posts. So I
add the munge to the domain portion of my e-mail address only to help out my
e-mail provider. While it assists in eliminating spam, the server-side
passcode rule ensures spam gets obliterated on delivery. It is almost as
effective as, say, Hotmail's "exclusive mode" where the only mails that you
accept must be from senders in your address book. With this rule, you
accept only mails where the sender added the passcode, and that won't be in
spam (spammers want their own Subject line, not one that has whatever you
want, and they won't get the information to tell them to add it).
