[ale] (no subject) SPAM talk...

[George Carless]

> Ouch! Well drew does have a point about obfuscation and it's backed up by
> actual RESEARCH. I find it frustrating to read a thread like this where
> noone has actually backed up their claims with facts. Of course this kind
> of research becomes outdated fast, so maybe that's why noone bothered, but
> FWIW here's one very good citation with solid research:
> 
> http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml

http://www.unicom.com/chrome/a/000388.html

The problem is that obfuscation can only ever be a (very) short-term solution.  The people developoing the spamming software 
are relatively quick, and relatively sophisticated - and they have an obvious vested interest in keeping track of new methods 
of obfuscation (and rendering them ineffective), while the rest of us who're running mailing lists etc. don't have the same 
time/resources/etc. to dedicate to the problem.  The logical conclusion of which is that all obfuscation of email addresses 
can lead to is more and more obscure/ugly archives with no real benefit in terms of preventing spam.  And the more 
additional/superfluous code that needs to be written to support this obfuscation, the greater the load upon admins -- 
increasing the difficulty of administering a list/archive/whatever, reducing the amount of time available for more important 
tasks, and increasing the risk of admins misconfiguring something when faced with an increasing complex environment.

--George