[thelist] Hiveware email address encoder

[rudy]

> joe at user dot com is not identifiable as an email address to an
> inexperienced web user.

you cannot dismiss the " joe at user dot com " solution as being too
difficult for inexperienced users, and then turn around and offer them a
cgi-based web form as an alternative -- inexperienced web users *hate*
web forms

> 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).

no offence to you personally, but that's silly

out of a thousand web visitors, you want to offer one or two
dumber-than-bricks users a convenient mailto link so that their precious and
invaluable feedback will not get lost, and meanwhile burden your network
with countless hits of spam, spam, and more spam?

which corporate network administrator have you tried this idea out on?

oh sure, send all the spam that you can recognize to the deleted folder, but
what about network congestion?

using spam filters is bolting the barn door after the horse has fled

nice solution, wrong problem

the real solution is not to condone email harvesting


rudy