[ale]OT It begins... (jumping into the middle)

[Jim Popovitch]

On Wed, 2004-02-04 at 22:09, Kevin Krumwiede wrote:

> You're right, they *can* be read by a machine.  However, obfuscating
> them makes it less likely that they will be.  There are countless ways
> of obfuscating an email address so that it can still be read by a human.
>  Any given harvester bot will *not* be looking for every single
> variation.  Likewise, something as simple as changing the name of a
> resource or running a server on a non-standard port may do nothing to
> stop a determined attacker specifically targeting your systems, but it
> *will* stop most worms, viruses, and skript kiddies dead in their
> tracks.  If you evaluate risk as a product of how potentially damaging
> something could be vs. how likely it is to occur, then simple measures
> like these should not be discounted.

No one has discounted any simple measures so far.  In fact, a few folks
have pointed out that it is not a simple task at all. ;)   

Harvesting emails alone is not responsible for 1 single spam. My
arguments have been that obfuscation only inconveniences normal folks,
rarely spammers.  I have yet to hear of one spammer who complains about
obfuscation, but we do hear from them on other much more successful
fronts.

-Jim P.