[thelist] Hiveware email address encoder

[Jeff Howden]

rudy,

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> From: rudy
>
> so use the NOSCRIPT tag to put the contact information
> in some fashion which is understandable by a human and
> not a spambot
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at what level of comprehension though?

joe at user dot com is not identifiable as an email address to an
inexperienced web user.  sure, it'll work great for the geeks that visit
your site, but they'll probably just contact you via the email address on
the whois for the domain.  ;p

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> a corporate site will most likely have cgi capability,
> and so a web form for contact is definitely the way to
> go there
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a corporate site should have both actually, if they want to make sure that
no member of their intended audience is left out.

bottom line, the reason for encoders is to stop email addresses from being
harvested.  however, that sort of defense is riddled with holes so big you
could drive cattle through them.  the answer isn't to obfuscate the address
but to use intelligent filtering (see other thread this week about bayesian
filtering).

.jeff

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