OT Disguising email links via Javascript

Is this an effective method to hide an email link?

<script language="JavaScript">
user = "myName"; site = "myDomain"; document.write('<a href=\"mailto:' +
user + '@' + site + '\">'); document.write('My Name</a>');
</script>

--
Blair Rasmussen
Oshima Web Solutions
------------------------------
http://www.oshima.ca
http://www.hockeytawk.com
------------------------------

On Mon 08 Dec 2003 06:06:29p, Blair Rasmussen wrote in
macromedia.dreamweaver:

Is this an effective method to hide an email link?

script language="JavaScript"
user = "myName"; site = "myDomain"; document.write('<a href=
\"mailto:' +
user + '@' + site + '\">'); document.write('My Name</a>');
/script

It should work. I'm surprised that the spambots haven't picked up on it,
and run javascript to get email links. I suppose the downside of that is
that somebody would figure out a method to scam them using js. There was
an article a while back about the relative effectiveness of antispam
measures on websites. I don't have it at hand, and it's not coming up
with a search. I know where I can get it at home, so I'll post a link to
it later.

The downsides to this are that it won't work if the user agent has js
shut off, and it won't work if the user doesn't have an email client
configured.

However: the only absolute way to avoid posting an e-mail address is to
use serverside scripting - php, ASP, cgi - in a form.

Is this an effective method to hide an email link?

I don't think so...your email still shows up after the document.write, no?

Plus, it makes it hard for those without javascript to email you.

If you really want to hide an email, stick it behind a contact form.

Otherwise, invest in good server-side spam filtering.

-Darrel

On 08 Dec 2003 in macromedia.dreamweaver, Joe Makowiec wrote:

There was an article a while back about the relative effectiveness of
antispam measures on websites.

http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml

--
Joe Makowiec can be reached at:
http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe

Joe Makowiec <webmaster (AT) munged (DOT) brunswicklibrary.invalid> wrote in
news:Xns944BBABAF8132makowiecatnycapdotrE (AT) 65 (DOT) 57.83.209:

It should work. I'm surprised that the spambots haven't picked up on
it, and run javascript to get email links. I suppose the downside of
that is that somebody would figure out a method to scam them using js.

Spambots have been capable of running javascript for some time, still
relatively few in number compared to those that can't but.

There was an article a while back about the relative effectiveness of
antispam measures on websites.

An article which contradicted much of my experience and most of what I
found from disecting a few bots.

What about using entities, as here:
http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

??

--
Blair Rasmussen
Oshima Web Solutions
------------------------------
http://www.oshima.ca
http://www.hockeytawk.com
------------------------------


"Blair Rasmussen" <brasmussen_ca (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

Is this an effective method to hide an email link?

script language="JavaScript"
user = "myName"; site = "myDomain"; document.write('<a href=\"mailto:' +
user + '@' + site + '\">'); document.write('My Name</a>');
/script

--
Blair Rasmussen
Oshima Web Solutions
------------------------------
http://www.oshima.ca
http://www.hockeytawk.com
------------------------------

What about using entities, as here:
http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

??

I have used this feature in NOTEPAD Pro for several years and still
have not gotten much spam on the several addresses I use. I would say
it works...but someone always will find a way around it.

Blair Rasmussen wrote:

What about using entities, as here:
http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

Good idea. I should think you would only need
to encode a character or two if the harvesters
are so stupid as to get confused by this :-) RM

Rick Merrill <RickMerrill (AT) comTHROW (DOT) net> wrote in
news:br5200$ik1$2 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com:

What about using entities, as here:
http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

Good idea. I should think you would only need
to encode a character or two if the harvesters
are so stupid as to get confused by this :-) RM

Which they are not. Anyone who believes bots read source code hasn't given
enough thought to how they work.

For a bot to be able to find the page to begin with it probably followed a
link from somewhere, therefore you can conclude they have no difficulty
parsing html, if they can parse HTML they can decode entities (as required
by the spec).