OpenEuphoria

Re: listfilter & mailbots

• Posted by Robert Craig <rds at RapidEuphoria.com> Oct 15, 2005
• 507 views

Rolf Schröder wrote:
> since about one year I receive Spam with an increasing rate, and I was
> wondering
> about it, for my address is scrambled via JS in my web page, though
> 'clickable'.
> 
> Now I found out: if I use Google searching for my e-mail address, it returns
> two pages containing my e-mail address multiple times (my signature contains
> it):
> 
> <a
> href="http://www.listfilter.com/cgi-bin/esearch.exu?thread=1&fromMonth=5&fromYear=9&toMonth=7&toYear=9&keywords=%22%22&first_res=101">http://www.listfilter.com/cgi-bin/esearch.exu?thread=1&fromMonth=5&fromYear=9&toMonth=7&toYear=9&keywords=%22%22&first_res=101</a>
> <a
> href="http://www.listfilter.com/cgi-bin/esearch.exu?fromMonth=6&fromYear=1&toMonth=1&toYear=A&postedBy=Robert+Craig&keywords=&first_res=301">http://www.listfilter.com/cgi-bin/esearch.exu?fromMonth=6&fromYear=1&toMonth=1&toYear=A&postedBy=Robert+Craig&keywords=&first_res=301</a>
> 
> When I sent the messages about one year ago to Euforum, I was not aware of the
> fact, that Mailbots (like Google) are able to scan the listfilter pages for
> e-mail addresses!
> 
> Normally it's not a problem to include e-mail addresses in the body of a
> e-mail,
> for it will not be placed on a webpage.
> 
> This might regard also others. Do you have an idea to avoid this problem? Is
> there any possibility to 'repair' this? 

I'm surprised that a Google search can deliver result URLs 
that run CGI programs. I tend to doubt that automated harvesters
of e-mail adresses would try to run CGI programs.
They normally wouldn't know what parameters to supply to the
CGI program.

Also, I think there are many ways for your e-mail address to
be picked up and shared by spammers. If you have e-mailed
someone whose machine gets a virus, that virus might scan his
hard disk, find your address and send it "home".

There is a way to make things safer.
I could change all the at-signs to " at "
in messages saved in the archive. I already do this on EUforum.
I'd have to write a program to go through 9 years of messages 
and change them. I could also consider compressing the message
archive in some format. I'll think about it.

Regards,
   Rob Craig
   Rapid Deployment Software
   http://www.RapidEuphoria.com