If you post (type) your e-mail into the body of a text post here, it is visible to anyone and/or anything, such as a web bot.

Someone in another thread had asked someone else to contact him and typed his e-mail address into the post.

Grazie,

I just did a Google search on your name, restricted to sonymediasoftware.com, and with the word "email" in the search. It returned 2,500 hits. I've emailed you the link to the search.

We're definitely in the open here when it comes to search engines.

http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/mungfaq.html

This link explains how and why to "mung" your email address. Generally, changing ".com" to "dot com" is no longer effective because the robots reading web pages now look for "dot com" and use it as ".com".

And of course, the user "myname" at the domain "myemail.com" is now going to start receiving spam because of this thread. ;)

How about: Dawt comm , Dought caum , daugt cahm , dott cowm , daht cawm , daught calm , or period commercial. They ought to be good for a couple of months.

Having had more than one email addy in my time it's been my experience that no matter how hard I tried to keep it from getting in the hands of spammers in the end the result was the same. The longer I had my addy the more spam I would get as spammers lists would propagate and inevitably my inbox would become overrun. I can point to my parents who have never ordered anything online, been on a message board, or filled out an online form as an example of how little "protecting" your email address actually does to deter the eventual onslaught of unsolicited emails.

In the end I would just rather be readily available to those who need or want to contact me than to waste my time and efforts trying to prevent whats unavoidable. Having my own domain name I have spam filters on my server and make ample use of Outlooks spam filters. While I get somewhere around 100+ spam emails a day only a couple actually get to my inbox, most end up in my junk email folder and have had very few false positives.

Another thing is that having my own domain, my email addy is set up as the default "catchall" and as such I can tell you that I have recieved literally thousands of emails sent to random names " @undergroundplanet.com " even though they have never been used in any capacity ever.

- Ray

Nice tip -- thanks!

Thanks Guys!

Jay, thanks for the explanation and JM for raising my awareness.

G

I still try and tell my email friends to stop forwarding me little jokes and stuff. Escpecially those ones that end with "If you found this funny/inspirational please pass it along to as many of your friends as you can."

They just don't get it that those little "inspirational stories" were crapola designed to collect as many emails as possible. So....don't foward jokes !!! Cut and Paste them !!!

I'm also curious as to what is goin thru the heads of people that design spam mail or viruses.....don't THEY hate getting those things as well ?

.

They don't have so many friends, so they just filter all the mail out.

Some time ago, I had a nice little program designed to give a lot of headache to spammers. It would generate any number of random, non-existing e-mail addresses, and you would post them online on an html page. The bots would collect them, and they would be more harm than good to the ones using them.
If they want to send junk e-mails, you give them junk addresses, or, fight fire with fire, like when you are in a burning forest, and the best way to keep the fire away is to burn the trees around yourself.

Speaking of that, let me give some e-mail addresses to those bots to chew on:
jkdhjciejkcnkck@fkjricrjojlrrl.com
anonrealaddress@spammersbitethedust.com
foolmeoncefoolmetwicefoolyouthrice@go-get-it-spammers.com
arealone475@notreallyhaha.com
fetchitspambot@cantfetchityouidiot.com
wantsomemorejunk@illgiveyoumorejunk.com

I forgot to mention that the program that creates false e-mail addresses, also creates false names to go along with them, so that spam bots and even spammers think they have a genuine thing.
Speaking of which:
Joshuane Riptytidilypty joshuaneripty@shojomojojojoohjoy.com
Roseanneny Shiftynifty roseshifty@nowherespiftyfifty.com
Georgian Bushian georgybushytushy@nowherushyyouspamushy.com

Just make sure that the name, and especially e-mail address can't be real (in other words, almost impossible for such a name and e-mail address to exist)!
Let's give 'em hell folks! Keep on spamming the spammers ;-)

For the past 6 months or so my ISP has been filtering spam at server level. From 30 to 50 a day, I now get maybe 3 a week. This is a free service - I'm surprised it isn't more common.

Lotsa lists of lotsa fake addresses and names, and zillions of links to other lists. If you feel like fighting spam this way then feel free to link to any of these lists from your own web pages and let it grow.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that you can put the fake names and addresses in a way that humans can't see them, but bots can.
Few more addresses, he he:
Lispynan Shoderushi lispysh@tipitydipity23.com
Shumangonando Ranomanod sranomanod@whateverfordummies.com