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

[Joe Knapka]

Fletch <fletch at phydeaux.org> writes:

[scissors of brevity]

> Not to mention the more elaborate the obfuscation, the more of a pain
> it will be for non-harvesters to use as well.  You're attempting to
> stop an 18-wheeler rolling down a hill by tossing a twig in front of
> it.  By the time you get a big enough obstacle you're going to have
> halted legitimate users as well.

It's true that to be absolutely sure of your address obfuscation being
effective, you must mangle your "From" address. However, the only
context in which that's really important is when you are sending a
message to a list with a web-accessible archive. So rather than each
user obfuscating her address individually, it makes sense for the
listserver to do the obfuscation, *if* that can be done
effectively. If each list archive used a different obfuscation method,
it might be effective.

The most effective obfuscation seems to be stuff like:

  jknapkaIsATomato at kneuro dot not
  To reply, remember that net is not, and I am not really
  a fruit.

IOW, some more-or-less random transformation of the address,
followed by a human-understandable description of the transform.
Automating the generation of such obfuscations might make
a nice thesis topic for someone.

Cheers,

-- Joe

-- 
Resist the feed.
--
If you really want to get my attention, send mail to
jknapka .at. kneuro .dot. net.