(Part 4 of my UnCommon Sense Series of rarely offered information,
opinions, and articles.)
If you are one of those unfortunate computer users who suffers from an enormous volume of spam (unsolicited commercial junk mail) in your email inbox, you may wonder why you have been targeted. I used to get literally 100's of garbage emails per day until I decided to take action.
Yes, there are many 'spam filters' available today that can help screen out the stuff before it gets to your general inbox, but, as with most things, the best protection is prevention. If you are already a victim, it may be too late to salvage your existing email address - it may be time to setup a new one. (Contact your internet service provider to find out how to do that.) If your present address is relatively untouched (or you get a new one), here are a few things you can do to reduce the chances of getting on spam mailing lists:
1. NEWS GROUPS
News groups are those central web sites where you can read the musings of others on a huge variety of topics - everything you could think of (and several thousand that you would never think of). It can be a wonderful thing to stumble across a news group community of people from every part of the planet that share exactly the same interest that you have. Naturally, you may be tempted to jump in, introduce yourself, and make you contribution to the discussion threads. BEFORE YOU DO, look into the privacy policy of the news group, and how to post messages without having your email attached every message. News groups messages last forever, and are a major source of email addresses for spammers. If you choose to communicate your email address for some reason, use a format that automated email seekers won't recognize (see below).
2. GREETING CARDS
NEVER send (or respond to) a web-based greeting card by email. There are a number of sites where you can type in the name of a friend to receive an email greeting card (maybe even with music or animation). This service is free of charge. What do you think the company that provides this service gets? They get your email address AND the email address of your friend! That's worth money to spammers, and by saving a stamp or phone call, you put both of you on their lists. Not good.
3. WEB SITES (that you create)
Personal and corporate web sites are an easy source of email addresses. Sophisticated spammers use automated tools that scan the web looking for email addresses on web sites to add to their lists. There are two ways to block these tools from picking up your address from what is displayed on your web page:
(a) Change the address from the usual format:
"email: johnqpublic@domain.com"
to something that a reader would recognize but the spamming tool will not, such as:
"email: johnqpublic at domain dot com. (anti-spam format)"
(b) Type the email address into a text editor such as notepad or MS Word. Do a screen capture (press Alt+PrintScreen) and paste it into the PaintBrush accessory (or anything else that edits bitmaps). Select the email-address-text part of the screen-capture, and save a bitmap (.BMP) file with just that text in it. You can now insert the bitmap file on your web site as a picture, meaning that it will appear normal, but the automated tools will not recognize it as an email address.
The other source of your email address on a web page is one you don't see. It is the special HTML function (mailto:) that creates a email message to you when the user clicks on a hyperlink that you have defined for that purpose. The HTML code (if you look at it directly) looks something like:
<a href="mailto:johnqpublic@domain.com">Click here</a>
Note that your email address is just sitting in there - right where the automated email seekers will find it. Instead of using the "mailto:" function directly, you can insert a button the runs a small function. This function reproduces the mailto function, but builds up the address as a series of characters, rather than leaving it as a literal in the HTML text. (The HTML source of my opinion response page uses this functionality if you want to look at a real life example.) The function looks like this:
function emailer()
{
NewWin = window.open("mail" + "to:johnqpublic" + "@" + "domain.com")
}
The spammer's tools are very unlikely to be able to figure out an address from the above. Sure, it's possible, but they are after easier fish to fry - don't be one of them.
4. WEB SITES (that you visit)
The programmers who wrote the software (like Internet Explorer and Netscape) that you use to surf the internet worked hard to make things easier for you. All kinds of things can happen in the background that you are totally unaware of. These programs 'know' (or can easily determine) lots of things about how your system is set up, including your usual typical email address. You very likely told the browser exactly what that email address was when you first set it up. The screen asked for the information so you just typed it in.
The problem is that most people leave their browser in a state where any web site you happen to visit that asks for the same information will get it. They don't ask you - they ask your browser, who happily says that this is johnqpublic@domain.com surfing in. You have no idea that any information was exchanged. How do you turn this off? Unfortunately, I don't yet know. One of these days, I'll do some more research and the results will immediately be posted here. I do know that there are web sites devoted to allowing you to surf to other sites anonymously. Search them out.
In the mean time, I have a warning for you. I believe that the worst offenders of web sites that grab your email address are PORNOGRAPHY sites. Once that spam starts coming in, it grows very quickly. Curiosity is natural, and a fundamental requirement of how we learn as human beings. Do your homework, and know the risks. That's all I'm saying on that topic.
The foregoing is my opinion. You can send me yours by clicking here.