Critique (alz)

On Thu, 04 Nov 2004 17:40:29 +0100, chlori <invalid (AT) arto (DOT) ch> wrote:

Neal schrieb am 04.11.2004 17:25:
Form in addition to a valid email address is best.

But is there a way to stop spam without beeing
"unfriendly" to visitors?

Replace a few characters (especially the @) with numeric character
references. AFAIK spammers don't bother decoding them - there was a
study a year or so ago which tested this.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 20:53:29 +0100, Stephen Poley
<sbpoleySpicedHamTrap (AT) xs4all (DOT) nl> wrote:

On Thu, 04 Nov 2004 17:40:29 +0100, chlori <invalid (AT) arto (DOT) ch> wrote:

Neal schrieb am 04.11.2004 17:25:
Form in addition to a valid email address is best.

But is there a way to stop spam without beeing
"unfriendly" to visitors?

Replace a few characters (especially the @) with numeric character
references. AFAIK spammers don't bother decoding them - there was a
study a year or so ago which tested this.

Though I don't have the proof available, I've heard a little differently.

Apparently, some bots do decode them, and as it's quite easy to get one to
do it, it's bound to fail, if not today, then eventually.

As it's temporary relief at best, better to work on solving it at the
other end of the problem.

Neal wrote:

Stephen Poley wrote:
chlori wrote:

But is there a way to stop spam without beeing
"unfriendly" to visitors?

Replace a few characters (especially the @) with numeric character
references. AFAIK spammers don't bother decoding them - there was a
study a year or so ago which tested this.

Though I don't have the proof available, I've heard a little differently.

Apparently, some bots do decode them, and as it's quite easy to get one
to do it, it's bound to fail, if not today, then eventually.

As it's temporary relief at best, better to work on solving it at the
other end of the problem.

It takes but 1 decoding spambot to get you on a spamlist.

Furthermore, as character entities become popular in email addresses,
decoding them will become common features in bots.

--
Ben M.