Re: Jim...how do you protect email address from bots?

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Re: Jim...how do you protect email address from bots?

From Max on 01 July '98
adding to Jim...how do you protect email address from bots? posted by Roger

>how do I stop EmailSiphon from sucking up all the email addresses listed on my site?
Use the extended character set to quote in the @-sign and some of the address characters.
Scavenger-bots are programmed to look for mailto: and/or @-signs. Browsers don't seem to
be bothered by the extended characters, and the addresses work just fine.

You can also give them indigestion in a big way.
follow the links at this site to wpoison and ask your ISP if you can run it on your site.
http://www.e-scrub.com/
You'll have to rename the program and the directory - some of the scavenger bots have been programmed to
avoid wpoison, but "members" is something they will fall for. Be sure to put it into a directory that is
NOT on the normal search robot menu so they won't get caught. Use robots.txt for that.
The scavengers don't honor robots.txt so they will get caught in the wpoison and happily slurp up
bogus addresses for hours (Yes, hours! One spent 3.5 hours harvesting thousands of email addresses on
one of my sites. I hope I filled the hard drive!)

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Reply:	>>how do I stop EmailSiphon from sucking up all the email addresses listed on my site? > Use the extended character set to quote in the @-sign and some of the address characters. >Scavenger-bots are programmed to look for mailto: and/or @-signs. Browsers don't seem to >be bothered by the extended characters, and the addresses work just fine. >You can also give them indigestion in a big way. > follow the links at this site to wpoison and ask your ISP if you can run it on your site. >http://www.e-scrub.com/ > You'll have to rename the program and the directory - some of the scavenger bots have been programmed to >avoid wpoison, but "members" is something they will fall for. Be sure to put it into a directory that is >NOT on the normal search robot menu so they won't get caught. Use robots.txt for that. > The scavengers don't honor robots.txt so they will get caught in the wpoison and happily slurp up >bogus addresses for hours (Yes, hours! One spent 3.5 hours harvesting thousands of email addresses on >one of my sites. I hope I filled the hard drive!)