Re: Whimper. Anybody notice huge spam jump??

Marilyn,

Are you familiar with the free Enkoder from Automatic Labs? After you
submit info via an online form, it chunks up the whole shebang,
mailto tag included, so that you have a javascript code block that
performs the whole operation of a mailto tag, up to and including
adding a subject line to the email, but it has a couple of
disadvantages.

1. It's time consuming. I haven't figured out how to produce these
pieces for multiple addresses at once, so, my legacy contact us page
with 50 mailto-tagged addresses on it is still live. Sigh.
2. In a WYSIWYG web editor, you don't have any access to the accuracy
of that code -- representing as a mysterious image in View, and as
the impenetrable javascript in Code. One must test in a browser and
email program to see if the email goes to whom it is meant to.

Go visit and try here:
http://automaticlabs.com/products/enkoderform

Is that significantly different from what you're already doing? Not
quite clear on your technique.

As for the spam increase, I thought I'd just throw a link to an
article my friend who reads slashdot pointed me to...

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/110806-image-spam.html

>
> What's With All This Spam?
> Posted by Zonk on Thursday November 09, @05:28PM
> from the pork-everywhere dept.
>
> coondoggie writes to mention a Network World article about soaring
> spam levels, confirmed now by researchers, IT managers, and
> security vendors. So, indeed, it's not just you: October was a
> spammy month. From the article:
> "Levine's assumption is this spike in spam levels is a result of a
> new generation of viruses and zombies that can infect PCs more
> quickly and are harder to get rid of. In its October report,
> messaging security vendor MessageLabs says the spike is largely due
> to two Trojan programs, Warezov and SpamThru. Others say a new
> breed of spam messages called image spam -- messages with text
> embedded in an image file that evade spam filters, which can't
> recognize the words inside the image -- is responsible."
> A note: I have no interest in penny stocks.

Happy buttressing,
Kalonica

On Nov 14, 2006, at 1:18 PM, Marilyn Saarni wrote:

> Hmm. Well, at $19.95 it would be worth it! Last thing I need is
> to feel guilty about propagating additional spam to the innocents
> whose emails are listed on my websites.
>
> However, I'm not seeing any current reviews online. Does anyone
> know somebody who is using it now?
>
> Maybe we all can compare notes??
>
> - Marilyn
>
>> I've noticed it too. I am considering using SpamVaccine, which
>> will encode all email addresses on a site with a javascript jumble
>> of numbers and symbols. This might work better than the javascript
>> you're using now since there's no text at all.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Aileen
>>
>>> Hi All -
>>>
>>> I have a favorite, easy-to-use javascript for email addresses on
>>> websites that I have used for years without issue. I happen to
>>> use it not only on the campus website that I manage, but also on
>>> a non-profit's website. That particular website's emails are
>>> actually aliases, so I get different information when that
>>> website's emails are forwarded.
>>>
>>> Well, the spambots seem to be breaking through my javascript, and
>>> forwarding garbage into these aliases--and in turn into my own
>>> mailbox.
>>>
>>> I suspect that this is probably true for the campus website
>>> javascript mailto: bits too, though I can't tell since there is
>>> no forwarding involved. I'm guessing that the "mailto:" code
>>> probably triggers the spambot software to run more sophisticated
>>> analysis of the javascript to pull out the email address (the
>>> javascript breaks up the email address into pieces in plain text,
>>> and then reassembles it for display).
>>>
>>> There has been news already about the 20% worldwide increase of
>>> spam over the last month due to these new spambots.
>>>
>>> Is anyone else having this problem? Any javascript mailto code
>>> others are using without increased spam?
>>>
>>> - Marilyn
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ---
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Aileen 'Ellie' Paterson
>> Fellowships and Publications Coordinator
>> Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities
>> 510/643-7236
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> The following was automatically added to this message by the list
> server:
>
> Webnet information is available at http://webnet.berkeley.edu.
> Email sent to this list is archived at http://ls.berkeley.edu/mail/
> webnet/ . This archive is open to the general public and browsable
> by search engine spiders, email-address harvesting robots, your
> bosses, etc.

Kalonica McQuesten
Marketing Coordinator
Public Safety and Transportation
University of California, Berkeley
2 Hearst Gym
Berkeley, CA 94702-5744

510-643-6442
kalonica_at_berkeley.edu

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Received on Tue Nov 14 2006 - 14:25:22 PST