|
Address munging is the practice of disguising, or munging, an e-mail address to prevent it being automatically collected and used as a target for people and organizations who send unsolicited bulk e-mail. Address munging is intended to disguise an e-mail address in a way that prevents computer software seeing the real address, or even any address at all, but still allows a human reader to reconstruct the original and contact the author: an email address such as, "no-one@example.com", becomes "no-one at example dot com", for instance. Any e-mail address posted in public is likely to be automatically collected by computer software used by bulk emailers — a process known as e-mail address harvesting — and addresses posted on webpages, Usenet or chat rooms are particularly vulnerable to this.[1] Private e-mail sent between individuals is highly unlikely to be collected, but e-mail sent to a mailing list that is archived and made available via the web or passed onto a Usenet news server and made public, may eventually be scanned and collected. Mung (or munge) is computer jargon for to make repeated changes which individually may be reversible, yet which ultimately result in an unintentional irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item. ...
An -mail address identifies a location to which e-mail messages can be delivered. ...
E-mail spam is a subset of spam that involves sending nearly identical messages to numerous recipients by e-mail. ...
Software, consisting of programs, enables a computer to perform specific tasks, as opposed to the physical components of the system (hardware). ...
E-mail harvesting is the process of obtaining lists of e-mail addresses for use in bulk mail or other purposes usually grouped as spam. ...
A webpage or web page is a page of the World Wide Web, usually in HTML/XHTML format (the file extensions are typically htm or html) and with hypertext links to enable navigation from one page or section to another. ...
Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
A chat room is an online forum where people can chat online (talk by broadcasting messages to people on the same forum in real time). ...
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. ...
An archive refers to a collection of records, and also refers to the location in which these records are kept. ...
WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (or the Web) is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet. ...
Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
A news server is a set of computer software used to handle Usenet articles. ...
Disadvantages
Disguising addresses makes it more difficult for people to send e-mail to each other. Many see it as an attempt to fix a symptom rather than solving the real problem of e-mail spam, at the expense of causing problems for innocent users.[2] Electronic mail, abbreviated e-mail or email, is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ...
E-mail spam is a subset of spam that involves sending nearly identical messages to numerous recipients by e-mail. ...
The use of address munging on Usenet is contrary to the recommendations of RFC 1036 governing the format of Usenet posts, which requires a valid e-mail address be supplied in the From: field of the post. In practice, few people follow this so strictly.[3]
Alternatives As an alternative to address munging, there are several "transparent" techniques that allow people to post a valid e-mail address, but still make it difficult for automated recognition and collection of the address: - "Transparent name mangling" involves replacing characters in the address with equivalent HTML references from the list of XML and HTML character entity references.
- Posting all or part of the e-mail address as an image
- Posting an e-mail address as a text logo and shrinking it to normal size using inline CSS.[4]
- Posting an e-mail address with the order of characters jumbled and restoring the order using CSS.[5]
- Building the link by client-side scripting.[6]
An example of munging "user@example.com" via client-side scripting would be: In SGML, HTML and XML documents, the logical constructs known as character data and attribute values consist of sequences of characters, in which each character can manifest directly (representing itself), or can be represented by a series of characters called a character reference, of which there are two types: a...
ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ...
In computing, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language. ...
Client-side scripting generally refers to the class of computer programs on the web that are executed client-side, by the users web browser, instead of server-side (on the web server). ...
<script> var name = 'user'; var at = '@'; var domain = 'example'; document.write(name + at + domain); </script> The use of images and scripts for address obfuscation can cause problems for people using screenreaders and users with disabilities. A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen. ...
According to a 2003 study by the Center for Democracy and Technology, even the simplest "transparent name mangling" of e-mail addresses can be effective.[7] The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is a Washington, DC based non-profit advocacy group that works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the Digital Age. ...
Examples Common methods of disguising addresses include: | Disguised address | Recovering the original address | | no-one at example (dot) com | Replace " at " with "@", and " (dot) " with "." | | no-one@elpmaxe.com.invalid | Reverse domain name: elpmaxe to example
remove .invalid | | moc.elpmaxe@eno-on | Reverse the entire address | | no-one@exampleREMOVEME.com.invalid | Instructions in the address itself;
remove .invalid | | no-one@exampleNOSPAM.com.invalid | Remove NOSPAM from the address, remove .invalid. | | n o - o n e @ e x a m p l e . c o m | This is still readable, but the spaces between letters stop automatic spambots. | It's a good idea to include instructions afterwards since many people are unaware of the practice of address munging. The term domain name has multiple related meanings: A name that identifies a computer or computers on the internet. ...
jhjhjh ...
jhjhjh ...
jhjhjh ...
These may not always work, as some spambots are known to remove "NOSPAM" from e-mail addresses, and such.
The reserved top level domain .invalid is appended to ensure that a real e-mail address is not inadvertently generated. One problem is that some spammers will now remove obvious munges and send spam to the cleaned up address. For this reason many people recommend using a totally invalid address (especially in the From line) and perhaps a disposable email address in the Reply To. A top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of which Internet domain names consist of. ...
A top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of which Internet domain names consist of. ...
Disposable email addressing (DEA) refers to an alternative way of sharing and managing email addressing. ...
Notes - ^ Email Address Harvesting: How Spammers Reap What You Sow, Federal Trade Commission. URL accessed on 24 April 2006.
- ^ Address Munging Considered Harmful, Matt Curtin
- ^ See Usenet.
- ^ Email CSS obfuscation tool (Generator requires javascript enabled, output for displaying emails requires basic CSS)
- ^ PHP jumbler tool
- ^ JavaScript address script generator (Generator requires cookies enabled, output for displaying emails requires javascript enabled)
- ^ "Why Am I Getting All This Spam? Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Research Six Month Report" March 2003.
April 24 is the 114th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (115th in leap years). ...
For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of web browsers. ...
HTTP cookies, sometimes known as web cookies or just cookies, are parcels of text sent by a server to a web browser and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. ...
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of web browsers. ...
See also Netiquette (neologism, a portmanteau formed from Network etiquette, though now commonly mistaken to be Internet etiquette) is a catch-all term for the conventions of politeness and respect recognized on Usenet, in mailing lists, in live chat systems, and on other electronic forums such as Internet message boards. ...
Internet bots, also known as web robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the internet. ...
External links |
Feeds |
Contact