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Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

rouninmedia.github.io

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Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#151

Post by r-w »

crazygringo wrote: post #145
yreg wrote: post #62

> Email addresses published on webpages usually need to be protected from email-harvesting spambots. Do they though? I have had my email address published on my website in a I use both Gmail and (for some other addresses) a webmail hosted by a local company which uses some other filter. Both work well, so it's not something only Google can do.

Exactly. I definitely recall in the early 2000's it absolutely did lead to spam, and e-mail obfuscation techniques were a real thing that genuinely helped. But by 2015 or so it didn't matter at all anymore, in my personal experience. It didn't even lead to spam that needed to filtered. Spammers just stopped looking for e-mails that way. Which makes perfect sense -- most people don't have their e-mail address listed a…

Unless you’re the one trying to sell them, in which case that’s part of doing business :)

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#152

Post by r-w »

qingcharles wrote: post #139
yreg wrote: post #62

> Email addresses published on webpages usually need to be protected from email-harvesting spambots. Do they though? I have had my email address published on my website in a I use both Gmail and (for some other addresses) a webmail hosted by a local company which uses some other filter. Both work well, so it's not something only Google can do.

I have two people I designed web sites for in the last year and I put both their email addresses in the footer and neither one of their accounts has received a single spam message in all of that time (not even something dropped into the Spam folder). Both sites are popular and have thousands of visitors and get scraped by every search engine and AI bot you can think of.

Interesting. Maybe footer emails tend to be support contact addresses rather than personal inboxes. Otherwise I’d find that discrepancy very surprising.

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#153

Post by digging »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #134
digging wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My preference is to not have my email harvested at all when possible, even if I don't personally see the spam emails. (I'm not saying it's a critical privacy/security issue, but a preference.)

So then you never use your email, right?

What?

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#154

Post by r-w »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #134
digging wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My preference is to not have my email harvested at all when possible, even if I don't personally see the spam emails. (I'm not saying it's a critical privacy/security issue, but a preference.)

So then you never use your email, right?

I think they’re obliquely referring to the scanning practices of major providers like Gmail, which most people use to filter their spam.

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#155

Post by WirelessGigabit »

xyst wrote: post #76
yreg wrote: post #62

> Email addresses published on webpages usually need to be protected from email-harvesting spambots. Do they though? I have had my email address published on my website in a I use both Gmail and (for some other addresses) a webmail hosted by a local company which uses some other filter. Both work well, so it's not something only Google can do.

this used to be a problem in the early 00s. I don’t think spam filtering was as good back then so protecting your public email from spam was necessary. Also this was a time when mail boxes were often allocated 10-25 megabytes. So spam bots could easily flood your email.

When I signed up for Hotmail it was 2MB.

Then on April 1st, 2004 Google launched wasn't an April 1st joke... GMail with 1GB! I remember getting a beta invite and inviting others.

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#156

Post by kevincox »

SoftTalker wrote: post #148
throwaway598 wrote: post #78

My domain: 24 years registered to me. A .com. My email address: Listed at the top of the front page. In a H3 tag. This email address's spam problem: Not a problem. 15ish per day get to me including Junk folder. Thanks Purelymail. What is a problem: Transactional email unrelated to transactions, Promotional email which is newsletter junk spam, Social networks complaining of not being used.

> Social networks complaining of not being used This is my biggest one. I get more spam from Facebook begging me to log in than I do from almost anything else. I haven't used the account in about 7 years, you'd think they'd figure it out.

> you'd think they'd figure it out.

Cost of sending spam: Effectively zero.

Cost of pissing off inactive user: Essentially zero.

Cost of convincing inactive user to come back: Positive.

Add in a bunch of other factors like some product manager twisting stats to make it look like they are getting users back even if they really aren't and you see why it happens.

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#157

Post by treflop »

crazygringo wrote: post #145
yreg wrote: post #62

> Email addresses published on webpages usually need to be protected from email-harvesting spambots. Do they though? I have had my email address published on my website in a I use both Gmail and (for some other addresses) a webmail hosted by a local company which uses some other filter. Both work well, so it's not something only Google can do.

Exactly. I definitely recall in the early 2000's it absolutely did lead to spam, and e-mail obfuscation techniques were a real thing that genuinely helped. But by 2015 or so it didn't matter at all anymore, in my personal experience. It didn't even lead to spam that needed to filtered. Spammers just stopped looking for e-mails that way. Which makes perfect sense -- most people don't have their e-mail address listed a…

I’ve been having all my email addresses posted plain text since like 2005 and I’ve signed up on like every website imaginable (my password manager has over 2,000 entries) and I’ve never had a spam problem, at least on Gmail.

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#158

Post by muzster »

internetter wrote: post #104
muzster wrote: post #70

Heavily guarded fortress would indicate something of value inside, and the big crooks may spend a little more effort. In the age of AI, this becomes even easier. { "model" : "gpt-4-turbo", "messages" : [ { "role" : "system", "content" : [ { "type" : "text", "text" : "return a json array of all valid emails found in the image." } ] }, { "role" : "user", "content" : [ { "type" : "image_url", "image_url" : { "url" : "da…

We've had OCR for decades before GPT. I suspect GPT might perform worse than OCR. What a waste.

Agreed - it's a waste. GPT is not too bad at reading text from image and with the added bonus that you can reason with it.

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#159

Post by rishikeshs »

mediumsmart wrote: post #72

this works if you write it into the html on fullmoon tuesdays : some.dude@the.otherdudes.site

how des this work

Re: Protecting your email address via SVG instead of JavaScript

#160

Post by dhosek »

yreg wrote: post #62

> Email addresses published on webpages usually need to be protected from email-harvesting spambots. Do they though? I have had my email address published on my website in a I use both Gmail and (for some other addresses) a webmail hosted by a local company which uses some other filter. Both work well, so it's not something only Google can do.

My thoughts exactly. On the other hand, an email address I used with Usenet ca 1999–2001 has had a consistent flood of spam. I think most spammers are using the same 20+-year-old list of emails.

The email address on my website doesn’t even get stuff that goes to the spam filter. Nothing, nada zilch.

I do think that there are some mailing lists that get generated by trying to guess emails, brute-forcing gmail addresses by trying dictionary attacks of the FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME variety or 1–10 letters. I get a tiny amount of spam sent to a domain@domain.com address I have, but that’s typically on the order of one message a year.

And all else aside, the overall volume of spam email has declined dramatically, even ignoring the effect of the gmail spam filter. I’m guessing that email as a spam vector just doesn’t make sense anymore and most of what goes out is a mix of 419 scammers trying to make their quotas and would-be scammers who’ve been scammed into buying that 20-year-old list of emails.

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