The definitive "e-mail sucks" thread!

[AL the Inconspicuous]

I wanted to move this conversation from another thread, where it was off-topic.  The backlog:

Also leaving your email address sitting on a forum like this...not so smart.

try this next time sara.coffer (at) Yahoo http://ask-leo.com/why_shouldnt_i_post_my_email_address_in_a_public_forum.html

Yeah, us people writing e-mail address harvesting bots haven't figured out the ... Code: [Select] s/[\W\(\[\{\<]+at[\W\)\]\}\>]+/\@/gi ... preprocessor thing yet...  And adding common domain suffixes - way over our heads...

Not that inside, but if you have to post your email (which I dont) then you can least take simple steps to avoid some spam.

And now a question I'm replying to here:

Just a question how good is a java scrip encryption of an email address in protecting an email from bots?

There are two kinds of e-mail address harvester bots: resource-efficient spidering scripts that don't bother parsing out the HTML much less the embedded scripts so that connection speed and not CPU is the performance bottleneck, and Web browser add-ons that are written in JavaScript and see the page exactly as the user does.  When I was in the spamming business the latter were consider a luxury, because they required at least 50x more CPU power to run, but that's less significant today because computers and JS engines got a lot faster, and especially because of all the zombie machines out there running trojan Web browser toolbars that create invisible tabs / windows to execute their remotely controlled instructions and then "phone home" to upload the gathered data.  As in-browser harvesters become more popular, the only truly safe way to post your e-mail address online would be in a way that can't be clicked or copy'n'pasted, like in a CAPTCHA image.

For a while my favorite spam control technique was to have my own e-mail server with a blacklist, which means all e-mail going to any technically-valid address @mydomain.com would get to me, unless I explicitly blocked it.  Whenever posting an e-mail address, I used a unique username like ftl-forum@ or 2009-12-27@ - I even figured out a way to order business cards with card12345@ in the e-mail username (unique random number in each card).  That way I'd know who leaked my e-mail address to the spammers and just block that one address.  I'd also blacklist aliases like admin@ or webmaster@ because a lot of spammers just loop through all registered domains and target those addresses, but unfortunately the spammers eventually started including random aliases, and doing this via a white-list would be too much of a hassle.

E-mail really is a case of poorly-planned 20th century technology failing to scale up to the 21st century reality.  Even with 90% spam filtering effectiveness the ones that get through typically outnumber your regular mail, and/or important messages occasionally get recognized as spam by mistake.  That's why I hardly ever use e-mail anymore.  Having the recipient's rather than the sender's server hold the message was pretty darn stupid, and like 90% of conversations people have are either completely public or involve more people than concatenating e-mail reply threads from multiple people makes convenient.  I prefer to use a mesh of reliable forums instead.

[anarchir]

card12345@ in the e-mail username (unique random number in each card).  That way I'd know who leaked my e-mail address to the spammers and just block that one address.

Very smart. And I prefer forums (or facebook) too.

[AL the Inconspicuous]

Facebook is too centralized and in bed with the government for my tastes...

[anarchir]

Why I didnt want to join it originally (CIA BS too), but literally everyone I know is on there so it was inevitable. Turns out, its a major activist hub too.

[AL the Inconspicuous]

If everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you do it?

[anarchir]

If everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you do it?

Literally everyone? Can they all be wrong?

[libertylover]

I have noticed a trend on some commercial web sites to start switching inquiries over to their facebook page.  I have an alias facebook.  Just think that it has so many privacy holes.  But I will admit it is a major hub of activism as well.  I just have not caught on to the whole facebook thing.  And I have grown unhappy with myspace as well.