Spam email - Don't post your email address

[SVOeric]

I've been meaning to post this one for a while now.

I've heard some people gripe that after they signed up for our forum, they have started receiving spam emails.

When you sign up for the forum, your email address is held in our internal database, and no one can get it, but the admins on this site. Furthermore, the SVOCA will no under any circumstances ever give out, or sell your email address to anyone. (see our privacy policy for more info)

Then how does it happen ?
people post their email address in threads, or in their signature.
There are crawler programs that do nothing but search websites for email addresses. Any address it comes across is saved, and you start getting spam-mail.

How do you get around it? -- the best way is to only pass your email in PM's, and never-ever post your email address anywhere on the INTERNET, in any forum, or anywhere that it can be viewed by others.
There are a few exceptions to this (such as our members only area, and PM's) but as a general rule, don't do it if you don't want spam.

from time to time, you will also see people post their email in this form
me at place.com
while this is better than posting me@place.com, many of the crawlers are now getting 'smart' enough to translate this.

What can you do if you are already getting a ton of spam?
Unfortunately -- not much. Using the un-subscribe feature on the spam emails you get will ONLY verify that the spammers have a valid address. It will not keep them from sending you emails. -- so in other words, don't use them.
so you have 2 options,
-- buy some good spam detection software, and be prepared for it to grab some legit emails as well.
-- Change your email address

I hope this helps a few people avoid getting spammed!

[Philc]

I've found for letting people know your email, using this method works

phil_socal at yhoo dot com.

but the crawlers could be getting smarter and look for that too!

[SVOeric]

actually, it's pretty easy to pick out the word DOT -- it's not used real often in normal text.

so you look for the words "at", and "dot" in close proximity to each-other. --

It's better than the normal way, but the bots are starting to pick that up too...

unfortunatly -- the webmaster address, and all the BOD addresses are plastered all over the site, so we get spam -- not much we can do about it. -- I'd just like to keep you guys from feeling our pain.

[Pat_in_L.A.]

so we get spam -- not much we can do about it. -- I'd just like to keep you guys from feeling our pain.

So does that mean this is the thread where we post the Email addy's of our spammers? (probably not, but turnabout is fair play!)

[SVOeric]

the problem is, spammers don't use real email addresses when they send their emails.

[rschonegg]

the problem is, spammers don't use real email addresses when they send their emails.

sounds kinda phishy to me... lol

i feel your pain every day at work Eric. if it isn't the antispam software on our exchange server not adjusted quite right, its my users coming to me..."im Gettin lots of spam now, what did YOU do ? Richard".....or the owner....saying to me.. "you better loosen up that spam stuff, people are coming to me about gettin stuff blocked"... only to find out its thier daily ata girl email or its thier daily joke form thier cousin that is now gettin blocked... and OF COURSE they ALL tell me that they don't sign up for ##$@ on the internet....

not using real email addy's.... traced spam to a Chevy dealership in TX and called thier IT department...they said.. HUH.. we'll get that fixed..... still getting it.........

[SVOeric]

*** UPDATE ***
Now that the forum is MEMBERS ONLY, posting your email address in a thread is OK..
The bots can't get to our posts to see it.

[SVOeric]

UPDATE to the update....
We've had the forum opened back up for a while... Be careful posting your email address, and any other personal information... We're already seeing a lot of bots crawl the website. Any personal information posted could be picked up by those bots. PLEASE be careful.

PM's are fairly safe tho, you can send addresses and email addresses via PM. BUT NOT financial information. anything you put credit card numbers in should be SSL encrypted.