Hiding Your E-Mail from Spammers?

[MA-Caver]

I have two e-mail addresses, one on yahoo for websites and other places (except this and several other selected sites) so that any spam gets directed there. My other one is what I call my personal address and in-so-far still gets spam but it's re-directed to a special folder (similar to the one I get on Yahoo).
Some sites I'm sure you've seen have that weirdly shaped lettering to deter automatic or remote entry into the site, but according to the article there hasn't been one for e-mail entry until now.

Hide your email address from spammers

Mon Apr 7, 2008 9:15PM EDT
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/26347

I'm always amazed at how many people volunteer their email address on forums and comments sections. I suppose no one told them spammers use programs that crawl the Web in search of email addresses, or perhaps they just don't care. As a site owner, I often hesitate about posting my email address publicly, but sometimes it's inevitable.

I've used different tricks to deter spammers, like using graphics, contact forms, or spelling out the entire email address (yourname [at] yahoo.com), but somehow, those accounts still manage to get spam. You're probably familiar with CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) since most websites with logins and forms use them, but until now I haven't seen one for individual email addresses.

The folks at Carnegie Mellon University have created an application called Mailhide to help you hide your email address. Users have to enter their email address and copy a piece of code that displays a partial email address ([email protected]) wherever it's posted. If a person really wants to find out what the entire email address is, they'll have to solve one of the two CAPTCHAs the application displays. HTML code is also provided for website owners.

Wonder if this really works and would it be suitable for MT?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The only way spammers get email addresses from here, is if people make them public. Otherwise they aren't accessible. If you use the "Email Member" feature, that will display your address to the other person. Most emails are collected by bots that search them out, usually from peoples websites. I use a challenge/response system on most of my addresses. Those see zero spam.

 

[Shicomm]

Just use gmail and you'll be just fine
No worries about spam anymore!

 

[MA-Caver]

Just use gmail and you'll be just fine
No worries about spam anymore!

I HAVE gmail and I still get the crap. Oh sure they have the no more spam button, but I still get it.

 

[newGuy12]

I have two e-mail addresses, one on yahoo for websites and other places (except this and several other selected sites) so that any spam gets directed there. My other one is what I call my personal address and in-so-far still gets spam but it's re-directed to a special folder (similar to the one I get on Yahoo).

This is what I do. And, I use gmail for my "real" email address. Its remarkably clean of spam.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I use a combination of white listing (meaning my certified good people get through ok) and a challenge/response system. On the addresses that I do this with, my spam levels are minimal. I'd say 99.5% clean.

 

[Jack Meower]

Just use gmail and you'll be just fine
No worries about spam anymore!

I use Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, work, etc... all for different uses. The Gmail account is only used for 'important' things and people I generally know, yet I still get spam in my inbox there. Granted, most of the spam goes to my bulk folder, but I still get some.

 

[Dao]

I HAVE gmail and I still get the crap. Oh sure they have the no more spam button, but I still get it.

Just report the email as spam and eventually google will treat it as spam if enough people report as spam.

 

[Sukerkin]

Exactly.

I have never encountered a more accurate spam filter than GMail provides - I can't recall the last time I had to read about 'opportunities' to expand my education (or anything else ) or various personal 'performance' solutions :lol:.

The most common cause of email in-box intrusion is your addy being in someone elses unsecured 'list'. It's hard to avoid that when so many are ignorant of simple on-line security procedures.

 

[Shicomm]

I find the gmail spam filter to be so good that i've stopped using a local mail client and now fetch all my mail tru gmail.

On a very rare occasion indeed a spam message seeps trough the filters but just 'reporting' it as spam seems to do the job just fine.

All my "i'm having this issue with outlook" customers get a conversion to gmail and i've had 0 complaints or returns !

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Supporting Outlook is a headache. Things so clunky it ***** its own settings regularly it seems.