[lnkForumImage]
TotalShareware - Download Free Software
Confronta i prezzi di migliaia di prodotti.
Asp Forum
 Home | Login | Register | Search 


 

Forums >

comp.lang.ruby

Re: Email Harvesting

Greg Vaughn

10/21/2003 9:44:00 PM

Ryan Dlugosz said:
>My $.02 = Attempting to hide all the emails does more harm than good...
>it really only makes it harder for people to contact you who have a
>genuine reason to do so (i.e. - with a Ruby question).

I agree that email mangling causes as many problems as it solves,
however there's another possibility. I don't recall the name of the
approach, but I've seen systems where you're presented with a graphic
containing a word (and a mangled background to foil OCR) and you must
type it into a form in order to get access to a web system. The idea is
to ensure that it is a real person viewing the web archive rather than a
spammer's harvesting bot.

Would something like that be an acceptable compromise? Who's in charge
of the web archive?

-Greg Vaughn
13 Answers

Chris Thomas

10/21/2003 10:48:00 PM

0

Problem is that it makes Google useless for searching the archives.
Apple's mailing lists do something similar but less secure, and it
neatly eliminates them as a useful repository of knowledge (Apple's own
list archive and search UI being almost completely useless).

Chris

On Oct 21, 2003, at 2:43 PM, Greg Vaughn wrote:

> Ryan Dlugosz said:
> >My $.02 = Attempting to hide all the emails does more harm than
> good...
> >it really only makes it harder for people to contact you who have a
> >genuine reason to do so (i.e. - with a Ruby question).
>
> I agree that email mangling causes as many problems as it solves,
> however there's another possibility. I don't recall the name of the
> approach, but I've seen systems where you're presented with a graphic
> containing a word (and a mangled background to foil OCR) and you must
> type it into a form in order to get access to a web system. The idea
> is to ensure that it is a real person viewing the web archive rather
> than a spammer's harvesting bot.
>
> Would something like that be an acceptable compromise? Who's in charge
> of the web archive?
>
> -Greg Vaughn
>
>

Tim Hunter

10/21/2003 11:29:00 PM

0

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 06:43:41 +0900, Greg Vaughn wrote:

> I agree that email mangling causes as many problems as it solves, however
> there's another possibility. I don't recall the name of the approach, but
> I've seen systems where you're presented with a graphic containing a word
> (and a mangled background to foil OCR) and you must type it into a form in
> order to get access to a web system. The idea is to ensure that it is a
> real person viewing the web archive rather than a spammer's harvesting
> bot.
>

It's called CAPTCHA, Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell
Computers and Humans Apart. See http://www.c....

Hugh Sasse

10/21/2003 11:36:00 PM

0

Kent Dahl

10/22/2003 7:58:00 AM

0

Tim Hunter wrote:
> It's called CAPTCHA, Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell
> Computers and Humans Apart. See http://www.c....

Ok, that was depressing. I just tried the gimpy test and failed TWICE.
Guess I'm a bot then. Or need stronger glasses. :P

--
(\[ Kent Dahl ]/)_ _~_ _____[ http://www.pvv.or... ]_____/~
))\_student_/(( \__d L b__/ Master of Science in Technology )
( \__\_õ|õ_/__/ ) _)Industrial economics and technological management(
\____/_ö_\____/ (____engineering.discipline_=_Computer::Technology___)

Ruben Vandeginste

10/22/2003 9:01:00 AM

0

Nikolai Weibull

10/22/2003 9:27:00 AM

0

* Ruben Vandeginste <Ruben.Vandeginste@cs.kuleuven.ac.be> [Oct, 22 2003 11:10]:
> Another disadvantage of such a system is that it will prevent people
> from searching the archives with google. (most of the times when i
> searched something about ruby, google would give me a relevant post in
> the web archives) Then wouldn't it be better render the email-address
> of the poster as a graphic ?
can someone please, please describe the issues associated with mangling
the email address? is this too hard for people reading this list to
understand?
ruby-talk at pcppopper dot org
or
ruby-talk@nospam.pcppopper.org
and then having a note on the front page saying that you must remove the
nospam. part from email addresses?
or some similar scheme?
nikolai

--
::: name: Nikolai Weibull :: aliases: pcp / lone-star / aka :::
::: born: Chicago, IL USA :: loc atm: Gothenburg, Sweden :::
::: page: www.pcppopper.org :: fun atm: gf,lps,ruby,lisp,war3 :::
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}

Hugh Sasse

10/22/2003 9:35:00 AM

0

Ruben Vandeginste

10/22/2003 11:34:00 AM

0

Nikolai Weibull

10/22/2003 11:52:00 AM

0

* Ruben Vandeginste [Oct, 22 2003 13:40]:
> PS. i've been completely 'Swen'-free for over a week now, but guess
> what, right after my post on the mailing list i recieved 4
> 'Swen's.. coincidence ? don't think so...
heh, ok, so either we have a harvester, or some #!@#!$^@ on the list is
distributing Swen to us? I recently had to change my email provider and
address, since my old account got totally destroyed by Swen when it was
launched. Now, the only address i get Swen to still is the address I'm
using now. It's sad that it has to be this way, I don't want to leave
this mailing list, especially not by outside force,
nikolai

--
::: name: Nikolai Weibull :: aliases: pcp / lone-star / aka :::
::: born: Chicago, IL USA :: loc atm: Gothenburg, Sweden :::
::: page: www.pcppopper.org :: fun atm: gf,lps,ruby,lisp,war3 :::
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}

Hugh Sasse

10/22/2003 12:59:00 PM

0