Never did them. I don't think they were de rigeur in those days, I certainly never saw any. People didn't even drink all that much - but most of us thought it was so very sophisticated to smoke cigarettes so became tobacco junkies :-( Spouse and I eventulally gave that up, thank goodness. What a waste of money if nothing else!
No, it was Jimmy's own affectation, one week he had his hair dyed tartan!
Mary
Indeed. It's been in my kf for a long time, it doesn't hurt.
Mary
My uk.d-i-y killfile also has just that one entry. Even Dr Dribble is sometimes more welcome ;-)
It is built on top of google maps - so you can blame them for that! ;-)
If you stick to the same alias and cosistenly post worthwhile stuff then you can build a good reputation for the alias - same principle as used on ebay.
However some seem to use an alias so as to cover their tracks when trolling or generally being objectionable. Hence you are never quite sure when you first meet and abvious alias which it will be...
Quite agree, however there is nothing to stop you including a human readable form.
The choice of newsgroups does make a difference these days (go back a few years and there was less of a distinction.
You may find this bit of resarch carried by the US Center for Democracy & Technology back in 2003 is quite interesting. It identifies where spammers harvest addresses:
(I have found that the addresses I have protected with obfuscation have remained relatively spam free (no more than half a dozen or so a day). The one I used ten years ago on usenet (before spam was really an issue however gets far more every day even though I have not posted it publicly anywhere for years)
Not quite the same as broadcasting your address though is it?
Just because you don't fancy it doesn't make it bonkers. I've used real, unmunged email addresses on Usenet for ten years, and I see no reason to change. Several times I've had difficulty e-mailing people who've munged their addresses, though.
Yes, I know about that and also quite often quote the URL.
However the same research showed that far, far more junk E-Mail is sent to E-Mail addresses harvested from WWW pages. If that was true in 2003 it's probably even more true now. My experience would seem to bear this out as I seem to get steadily less junk mail sent to my usenet posting address.
Surely you can't use a human readable but machine unreadable form of E-Mail address in the posting From: address. I simply don't put an E-Mail address in the body of my postings at all, what's the point? I have a valid From: address, it allows people to E-Mail me if they want and it receives very little junk.
Probably explains why Drivel needs to keep changing his ;)
Yes, my experiance would agree with that as well... although I still believe it is worth obscuring the from address on usenet even now.
I can also confirm that a bit of HTML obfuscation of the email address (i.e. coding bits of it with character codes so the plain text of the html does not read mailto:... etc) defeats almost all of the automated web harvesters.
Alas I have found that my very old addresses (used on usenet 10 years ago) seem to get a permenant background level of spam these days that does not change much...
Some folks do... including an obvious bit of padding lile "removethis" etc, that if left in makes the address non deliverable.
In the body? No point unless it makes it clear what the real email address ought to be. (spam harvester programs seem to ignore addresses in the body these days - even if not obfuscated)
My from address is not valid, although you still get enough info to email me ;-)
It also masks the fact that he single handedly has outposted (in quantity not quality obviously) any other poster on the group by something like 5:1!
I have the exact opposite experience to that research I get LOADS of spam to my BY e-mail address but very little to the address I use on my web page. Have never used a(n even munged) usable addy to post to usenet, if I ever post anything that requires a personnel reply will state a usable addy in the post with lots of and I tend to call @ . A la xycouk .
Someone is probably adding that to their usenet-spam-address-grooming-parser as we speak :)
Yes, I guessed that, sorry if I appeared to be blaming Grunff!
I have a bit of code on my webpage which was intended to work like that but I do get a certain amount of spam on that address and I think it must have come about by a harvester fishing out the address. I'll find and post the relevant bit of code if anyone wants to try to work out what is wrong?
-- Holly, in France Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.
Oh yes, just had a look at that[!] - renders the email address using javascript as the page displays....
[!] you might want to fix the bit on your contact page where it tries to load the .css style sheet from:file:///C:/My Documents/My Webs/myweb/index.htm
(that should teach you to use frontpage!) ;-)
The automated web harvesters seem to just parse the plain text without rendering the html first, so your javascript trick ought to do it. In fact I tend to use an even simpler dodge that seems to work well enough (and works on all browsers I have tried even if javascript is disabled):
email me
There are however some manual harvesters out there alas - i.e. humans and not programs. These are not so easy to fool!
I broadcast mine, with my telephone numbers. It's in the telephone directories (national and local), in several other directories and on my website. Hundreds of people know my address from direct communication. Many hospitals in Leeds know it, all the utility companies I use,my banks and building societies, all the magazines and associations I subscribe to and write for and some charities, my children and grandchildren and several of their friends, our own friends and neighbours ... there must be many more.
What's the problem?
Mary
usenet is a public forum just like chatting in a pub.. Why would anyone expect to send private messages to an individual without asking them for an address first? You couldn't in the pub.
PS my email address isn't munged and it is a valid domain.. however it doesn't resolve to a useful address for sending emails.
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