bkbits - "@" question

bkbits - "@" question

[Larry McVoy]

The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is probably
about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce spam if we
did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?

What are all of you doing to filter spam?

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 09:26:39PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is probably
> about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce spam if we
> did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?

No.

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Jean Delvare]

> * Larry McVoy asked:
> The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is
> probably about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce
> spam if we did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?
>
> * Christoph Hellwig answered:
> No.

Why not, please?

-- 
Jean Delvare
http://khali.linux-fr.org/

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Jan Engelhardt]

>> * Larry McVoy asked:
>> The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is
>> probably about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce
>> spam if we did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?
>>
>> * Christoph Hellwig answered:
>> No.
>
>Why not, please?

Counter-example... when I stopped posting to NNTP, the amount of spam also
decreased. Probably because the bots only skim a fixed timeperiod. In a long
term, I think it's a good choice to replace it. Maybe some PHP magic that
either puts <at>, [at] or (at) randomly there for each page request.



Jan Engelhardt
-- 
Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung
Am Fassberg, 37077 Göttingen, www.gwdg.de

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 12:14:52PM +0200, Jean Delvare wrote:
> > * Larry McVoy asked:
> > The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is
> > probably about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce
> > spam if we did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?
> >
> > * Christoph Hellwig answered:
> > No.
> 
> Why not, please?

Because spambots parse all this replacements anyway, and it makes cut & pasting
mail addresses if you want to reply to a change much easier.

p.s. please reply to me if you reply to my mails, thanks

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Toni Spets]

This is linux-kernel mailing list anyway.

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Måns Rullgård]

Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@linux01.gwdg.de> writes:

>>> * Larry McVoy asked:
>>> The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is
>>> probably about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce
>>> spam if we did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?
>>>
>>> * Christoph Hellwig answered:
>>> No.
>>
>>Why not, please?
>
> Counter-example... when I stopped posting to NNTP, the amount of spam also
> decreased. Probably because the bots only skim a fixed timeperiod. In a long
> term, I think it's a good choice to replace it. Maybe some PHP magic that
> either puts <at>, [at] or (at) randomly there for each page request.

What's to stop the bots from matching each of those patterns?  I have
been using my address openly on mailing lists and USENET for years,
and the spam level has stabilized on a manageable level.  It's only
during the outbreak of new viruses that the levels get annoyingly
high, but those are easily filterable.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@mru.ath.cx

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Jean Delvare]

> On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 12:14:52PM +0200, Jean Delvare wrote:
> > > * Larry McVoy asked:
> > > The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is
> > > probably about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce
> > > spam if we did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those
> > > addresses?
> > >
> > > * Christoph Hellwig answered:
> > > No.
> > 
> > Why not, please?
> 
> Because spambots parse all this replacements anyway, and it makes cut
> & pasting mail addresses if you want to reply to a change much easier.

Strongly depends on how this is done. Of course, replacing
user@domain.org by user(at)domain.org or even user AT domain DOT org
won't help. However, I wonder what amount of spambots will spot user:
domain org as a valid e-mail address.

There are also HTML+CSS tricks that should work well. Split the address
over right-floating span elements, these will display in the reverse
order. I doubt that the spambots will get it right.

I don't think that the cut'n'paste ability argument weights much here.
How often do you do that?

Thanks.

-- 
Jean Delvare
http://khali.linux-fr.org/

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[DaMouse]

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 12:59:43 +0200, Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 12:14:52PM +0200, Jean Delvare wrote:
> > > > * Larry McVoy asked:
> > > > The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is
> > > > probably about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce
> > > > spam if we did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those
> > > > addresses?
> > > >
> > > > * Christoph Hellwig answered:
> > > > No.
> > >
> > > Why not, please?
> >
> > Because spambots parse all this replacements anyway, and it makes cut
> > & pasting mail addresses if you want to reply to a change much easier.
> 
> Strongly depends on how this is done. Of course, replacing
> user@domain.org by user(at)domain.org or even user AT domain DOT org
> won't help. However, I wonder what amount of spambots will spot user:
> domain org as a valid e-mail address.
> 
> There are also HTML+CSS tricks that should work well. Split the address
> over right-floating span elements, these will display in the reverse
> order. I doubt that the spambots will get it right.
> 
> I don't think that the cut'n'paste ability argument weights much here.
> How often do you do that?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Jean Delvare
> http://khali.linux-fr.org/
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Why not just have a PHP contact form instead with some of the well
known PHP security things in it such as an auth number box or whatnot.

-DaMouse

-- 
I know I broke SOMETHING but its there fault for not fixing it before me

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Andrew Walrond]

On Saturday 23 Oct 2004 05:26, Larry McVoy wrote:
>
> What are all of you doing to filter spam?
> -

On all my mail and ML I use the exim MTA to filter all incoming and outgoung 
mail thru spamassassin and clamav. Works a treat. Never seen a virus, and 
perhaps 2 spams a day (down from hundreds).

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Jon Masters]

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:26:39 -0700, Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:

> What are all of you doing to filter spam?

[OT] I use gmail for such high volume mailing lists, not for personal
stuff. They have great filtering and it saves me hassle although I
also get a personal copy of list traffic.

Jon.

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Jesper Juhl]

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, Larry McVoy wrote:

> What are all of you doing to filter spam?

Personally I use SpamAssassin to get rid of the junk. Works very well for 
me.


---
Jesper Juhl

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Adrian Bunk]

On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 09:26:39PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:

> The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is probably
> about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce spam if we
> did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?

Assuming all people who have contributed to the Linux kernel also used 
their email address at least once to mail to linux-kernel, it wouldn't 
gain much.

I had a new email address, mailed to lnux-kernel, and less than 24 hours 
later the first spam mails arrived at this address.

And the spammers aren't dumb. These @-replacements are that commen that 
I'd be surprised if they still have a significant effect.

> What are all of you doing to filter spam?

500 Spams/day
Bogofilter catches > 95%

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Martin J. Bligh]

--Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org> wrote (on Saturday, October 23, 2004 11:21:31 +0100):

> On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 12:14:52PM +0200, Jean Delvare wrote:
>> > * Larry McVoy asked:
>> > The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is
>> > probably about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce
>> > spam if we did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?
>> > 
>> > * Christoph Hellwig answered:
>> > No.
>> 
>> Why not, please?
> 
> Because spambots parse all this replacements anyway, and it makes cut & pasting
> mail addresses if you want to reply to a change much easier.

Besides which, 99.99% of people who's name appears in the changelogs
have presumably posted to linux-kernel anyway, and are thus in need
of spam prophylactics whatever you do. So it won't help ...

M.

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Jeff Garzik]

Larry McVoy wrote:
> The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is probably
> about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce spam if we
> did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?
> 
> What are all of you doing to filter spam?


Largely irrelevant IMHO, since the changeset descriptions all have valid 
email addresses anyway.

	Jeff

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Mark Frazer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 767 bytes --]

Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> [04/10/23 01:31]:
> The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is probably
> about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce spam if we
> did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?

Hi Larry:  I've used this for a while to add email addresses to my web
pages and I get almost no spam any more, < 10 per month!

[mjfrazer@pacific depictII]$ html-encode mark@mjfrazer.rog
&#109;&#97;&#114;&#107;&#64;&#109;&#106;&#102;&#114;&#97;&#122;&#101;&#114;&#46;&#114;&#111;&#103;
[mjfrazer@pacific depictII]$ 

I've attached the source.

> What are all of you doing to filter spam?

I use bogofilter, but only get about 10 per month anyways.

cheers
-mark
-- 
People said I was dumb but I proved them! - Fry

[-- Attachment #2: html-encode.c --]
[-- Type: text/x-csrc, Size: 610 bytes --]

#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int usage (char *err) {
	if (err) printf ("%s\n", err);
	printf ("Usage: html-encode [-v] <string> <string> <string>\n");
	return 1;
}

int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
	int i, j, verbose = 0;

	while ((i = getopt (argc, argv, "v")) > -1) {
		switch (i) {
			case 'v': verbose = 1; break;
			default: return usage (0);
		}
	}
	if (argc - optind < 1)
		usage ("Nothing to do");

	for (i = optind; i < argc; i++) {
		if (verbose) printf ("%s: ", argv[i]);
		for (j = 0; j < strlen (argv[i]); j++) {
			printf ("&#%d;", argv[i][j]);
		}
		printf ("\n");
	}

	return 0;
}

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Måns Rullgård]

Mark Frazer <mark@mjfrazer.org> writes:

> Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> [04/10/23 01:31]:
>> The web pages on bkbits.net contain email addresses.  This is probably
>> about a 4 year too late question but would it help reduce spam if we
>> did something like  s/@/ (at) / for all those addresses?
>
> Hi Larry:  I've used this for a while to add email addresses to my web
> pages and I get almost no spam any more, < 10 per month!
>
> [mjfrazer@pacific depictII]$ html-encode mark@mjfrazer.rog
> &#109;&#97;&#114;&#107;&#64;&#109;&#106;&#102;&#114;&#97;&#122;&#101;&#114;&#46;&#114;&#111;&#103;
> [mjfrazer@pacific depictII]$ 
>
> I've attached the source.

Why not just perl -pe 's/(.)/"&#".ord($1).";"/eg;' ?

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com

Re: bkbits - "@" question

[Mark Frazer]

M?ns Rullg?rd <mru@inprovide.com> [04/10/28 14:18]:
> Why not just perl -pe 's/(.)/"&#".ord($1).";"/eg;' ?

even better...


-- 
I'm gonna be a science fiction hero, just like Uhura, or Captain Janeway,
or Xena! - Fry