[epub] RE: e-mail piracy

["Coach Maria" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I sent the first note to my ezine list yesterday.  The second note contains
links to different programs that may help us keep our email addresses from
Harvesters.  The 3rd is an excellent article about how we as web folks can
"try" to protect our email addresses from our websites.  Forth, I have
written an article about protecting yourself from virus/worms.  You can find
that at www.coachmaria.com/articles/virus.html

========================
It's in the news.  It's on TV.  Egads this one is driving all us nuts.

It's time to update your anti-virus programs files!  If you are
not sure if a message you receive is from a worm/virus or hoax?   Put it
through the virus and hoax checker at www.coachmaria.com/business.html

Are you getting blank emails from others?  Are you getting emails with weird
titles?  How about messages telling you to click on a link for more
information about the KLEZ virus?  Or emails saying hello or how are you
doing?

Just delete them.  If you don't know the person, add them to your "Junk
Mail" list.... this way you won't have to delete them again.  They're part
of the worms that are going around.  Here is an updated article on this
latest attack. The link appeared in today's issue of Ezine-Tips
http://Ezine-Tips.com

http://www.ku.edu/~acs/virus/viruses/klez.shtml

=========================
Harvesters are pretty wicked folks.  I also use the ASCII in my email
addresses.  However, they still find ways to harvest them.  Hard to keep up
with them.  Here is some information that may assist you...

http://sneakemail.com

Use the characters set's instead of @ . and even the correct letters:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/charset/
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_13.html
http://www.ramsch.org/martin/uni/fmi-hp/iso8859-1.html

Use this "escrambler" program to change your usual email address to
something else:
http://innerpeace.org/webtoolkit.shtml

Stop putting your email address as a contact in your meta tags.  While this
was usual in the mid 90's, now the "harvesters" look for this.

Don't use your email address in the signature line of your email.  Instead,
put your website address.


And an excellent article............
======================================================
** Protecting Your Email Address From Spamming Bots **
Copyright (c) Ravi Jayagopal. All rights reserved.
http://www.CyberConneXions.com/emailus.php?to=TOTD
======================================================

Ever wonder how the amount of spam (junk mail) in your inbox
seems to be getting more and more with each passing day??

If you didn't already know, one of the most common ways
in which spammers collect email addresses from the web, is
by using bots (robots, spiders, programs) that silently
spider your web site, go from link to link and collect words
which have an '@' character in them - your email addresses!

This article discusses 3 ways to protect the email
addresses on your site from such bots.

<< Method 1: Using JavaScript >>

Wherever you are using "mailto:You@Yoursite.com",
on your web pages, simply copy and paste the following
script as it is:

<scrip*t>
document.write("You" + "@" + "Yoursite.com");
</scrip*t>

[Of course, after modifying it to reflect your email id ;-)
And don't forget to remove the '*' from the <scrip*t> tag]

How this works:
When you paste the above line into your web page, and view
it in your HTML editor, you will probably not see anything.
Rather, you might see either a 'JavaScript Icon' (if you're
using an editor like DreamWeaver), or just raw HTML source
(as seen above).

Only when that page containing this script is loaded in a
browser, the above script will translate into the actual
words "You@Yoursite.com"

So, your visitor will actually see your email address, but
it won't be linked for them to click on. (keep reading,
I discuss how to do that too!)

How this helps:
The spamming bot only sees your page source. So, from the
above 3 lines of JavaScript, the bot will (hopefully) not be
able to figure out your email address, because the email
address is actually put together by the script only at the
time of display when viewed in a browser!

Of course, there is no guarantee that the bots aren't
intelligent enough to put 2 and 2 together.



<< Method 2: This one lets your visitor click, too >>

This one uses JavaScript too, but also shows up as a
hyper link, so that your visitors can click on it.

<scrip*t>
name = "You";
isp = "domain.com";
document.write('<a href=\"mailto:' + name + '@' + isp + '\">');
document.write(user + '@' + site + '</a>');
</scrip*t>

Again, clicking on the mailto: link generated above will
actually try to open the default email client on your visitor's
computer. If the client is not configured properly, or
if there is no email client installed at all, then your visitor
will get an error message, and then the only way they will
be able to send you an email is by copy-and-paste'ing your email
address into their hotmail or yahoo mail's compose box
(It's not a good idea to expect them to do all that work
to send *you* email).

Disadvantage
------------
If someone has turned of their JavaScript in their browser,
then they won't be able to see your email link. Of course,
the percentage of people who would do that is very minimal,
but they still are visitors you should consider before
going in for a JavaScript solution.



<< Method 3: Using PHP/CGI >>
The most spam-proof method of all.

Also helps in that the email is actually sent through a
program on your web site, which eliminates the problem of
the "default email client".

Obviously, it still can't prevent a "human" - a live spammer -
from going to your web site, noting down your email address(es)
and adding them to his "spammee" database.

This can be accomplished using any server side scripting
language (JSP, ASP, PHP, Perl). In the following example,
I have done it using PHP (my favorite language :-)

Take a close look at the following link, then click on it:
http://www.WebmasterInABox.net/emailus.php?to=Webmaster

You will be taken to a page containing a form. Now, nowhere on
my web site will you find any reference to an actual email address.
What looks like an email address is actually only a JavaScript
trick like the ones shown above.

So, spamming bots end up with an empty search, and yet,
my visitors can still conveniently email me using the form.

All they need to do is fill out the rest of the information
(some optional) and hit 'submit'. My email id is even
'pre-filled' for them to reduce their work.

You could either use this link directly, or combine with
Method #1 or #2 (from above), to create a
"JavaScript generated" email link which displays your
email address but uses form-mail to send the actual mail.

To see how the combination works, click over to
http://www.WebmasterInABox.net

Scroll down to the absolute end of the page. See the
email address there?

Now the text and the link have been generated using
JavaScript (Method #1 or #2), and the link actually
links to the PHP script (Method #3).

In fact, this gets even better - for each additional person
that needs to be given a link, all I have to do is just
change the name at the end of the link, for ex:

Link to email the web master:
http://www.WebmasterInABox.net/emailus.php?to=Webmaster

Link to email me:
http://www.WebmasterInABox.net/emailus.php?to=Ravi

Link to email Jim:
http://www.WebmasterInABox.net/emailus.php?to=Jim

Go ahead and try clicking on the links above - they work.

Advantages
---------
* I use this link in my all my posts on all the various online
Bulletin board forums and discussion forums and message boards
online, without the fear of spamming bots getting to them.

* This will work for anyone (PHP is neither browser
or operating system dependent).

Any or all of these methods, will substantially help you
eliminate that morning clutter from your inbox.

If not, then there's always http://www.SpamCop.net ;-)

Towards a cleaner, healthier inbox,

Cheers :-)

Ravi Jayagopal
http://www.CyberConneXions.com
-------------------------------------------------------------
Ravi Jayagopal is a New York based Web Developer and Internet
Marketer with extensive e-Business expertise. Sign up for his
Free Tip-of-the-Day newsletter and receive 365 tips
like the one you just read. Send a blank email to:
http://www.CyberConneXions.com/emailus.php?to=TOTD
-------------------------------------------------------------



Realize extraordinary results and enhance the quality of your personal and
professional life.  Find out more now... ht


-----Original Message-----
From: Jonni [mailto:jonnig@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2002 8:23 AM
To: epub@list-universe.com
Subject: [epub] e-mail piracy


In the last several days I've gotten three
notices from the "postmaster" stating that
e-mails I've sent can't be delivered. The problem
is, the original e-mail that is attached to this
message has a virus (according to Norton) and the
address to which the e-mail was supposedly sent
is not anyone I've sent messages to. My
newsletter only goes out once a month, and it's a
small list (218 members) so I can easily check.

Has anyone else gotten these messages? I see two
possibilities - a person is sending bogus
"postmaster" messages in order to infect
computers with the virus when we get curious and
open the message we supposedly sent. Or - someone
is using my e-mail address to send bogus (and
virus laden) e-mails. The first possibility does
not bother me overly much, since I get
attachments with viruses at least 10 times a day.
Just part of the new world, I guess. The second
possibility is very scary. I'm not technically
savvy enought to know if this is possible, and if
it is, how to protect myself from it. I'd hate to
get bumped from my server because of something
like this.

Any suggestions?
Jonni


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