Spam experience with your posted e-mail address?

[willow]

Hi all,

I'm curious about something. The e-mail address I posted for my contact info when I registered here was one I'd never used for anything else. It was just an unused extra address I could have on my account. But it has become the most "spammed" address I've ever had. I've gotten maybe a dozen Clarity-folks e-mails, and thousands upon thousands of...well, you know...I could be multiorgasmic, rich, enlarged, wet, and have the inside scoop on all the conspiracies if I'd ever answered any of them!

So here's my question - has this happened to anyone else here? In other words, does it seem like some spam address harvester has been by the site collecting us? Is it a general problem (for clarity posters), or is my experience unusual?

I know everyone gets spam, but I'm just wondering if there's anything Hilary should be aware of, and if so, if there's any way to make our addresses more difficult for a web-crawling spam harvester to notice.

For me, I'm thinking of closing that address, but I'm hesitant to post a new one.

 

[frandoch]

Hi,

Me too, but I find that this happens on most boards. I'm not sure if there is an answer, but I'm all ears - or should that be eyes ?

Michael F.

 

[martin]

Hi Willow,

I see that your email address is visible in your profile. So it's very easy to "harvest".
But that is probably impossible (perhaps Hilary can confirm this) if you make your address invisible.
And you can do that: Click 'Edit profile' on the left side of the screen, submit your password, on the next page scroll down to 'preferences' and check 'Do not display my e-mail address with my profile or on my post'.

Hope this helps.

 

[hilary]

Email addresses here always used to be OK provided you became a member, because bots can't - or couldn't - find their way to the dynamically-generated pages with the profile and address. I don't know whether one has been invented now that can.

Another possibility is that it was generated randomly: I have a catch-all set up on the onlineclarity address - that is, mail sent to anything@onlineclarity.co.uk reaches me. I've noticed I get spam to a lot of addresses I never invented or used: lettert is a favourite, as is resourcessupport.

You could change the options in your profile not to display your email address - or you could resort to old-fashioned methods, like listing your address as realaddressDELETETHISPART@realdomain.net .

If any passing programmers with time to give away know a way to make the email addresses in the profiles less accessible (this would require editing the cgi script that generates the page)... I'm all eyes and ears, too.

 

[hilary]

Oh look, it's cunningly made the 'anything@' into a real mailto link. Shall we place bets on how long before the first spam to that address?

 

[cal val]

Hilary...

Bot programmers stay abreast of the latest tricks...whatever you used last week to hide them is old news this week. Bots can find email addresses anywhere on the net no matter how hard you try to protect them.

And yes a lot of spam generating programs make up addresses.

But it sounds like a bot found Willow's address here.

I use a spam filter, but they even know how to get past that...so I'm leaving now to become a Russian bride selling Viagra and HGH from my new home-based business right after I take out a mortgage and apply for a loan consolidation, so I can afford the penis enlargement for my new American fiance who is busy surfing all the porn sites I learn about in email.

Cheerio the noo,

Val

 

[cal val]

Hey!!!

I'm so excited! I just won a new mousepad speakerphone in email. All I have to do is go to some website and apply for a college degree or some other such nonsense!

Wow Wowsiewow wow!

Love,

Val

 

[martin]

And I have won this beast:

Isn't she cute?

 

[willow]

Hee hee hee! Oh, what I've been missing!
I'd feel bad not having a visible e-mail address, and I suppose if I change it I'll just have the same problem eventually. Or opportunity.

 

[cal val]

Hi Willow...

I just got this in email... thought you might enjoy it. I did. It looks about right to me.

http://www.andreas.com/faq-spam.html

Love,

Val

 

[willow]

hee hee! Yep.

 

[lenardthefast]

Willow,

Nope

Namaste,
Leonard

 

[candid]

Val, thanks for that. And here I thought it was just me. That isn't penis envy, its self-penis-worship. What's that line in 22, he lends grace to his ____?