T3: Anti-spam help

[Toby Erkson <Toby_Erkson@ccm.jf.intel.com>]

This is off topic but I believe the information below will benefit anyone 
who has a web page and/or has an email account (which is everyone on this 
list!).  If this is a no-no then please let [Type - 3 mailing list 
head-honcho] Greg be the one to reprimand me...


After killing four spam accounts (by contacting their ISP) I received some 
anti-spam links from HotMail.  Here's one I found rather informative 
'http://www.csn.net/~felbel/jnkmail.html'

>From it I found 'http://www.ecofuture.org/ecofuture/jmnews.html#bait' and I 
came across this:
"Spam Bait

You can add some mailto tags to any web pages you maintain: 

    <A HREF="mailto:abuse@[127.0.0.1]"; > </A>
    <A HREF="mailto:postmaster@[127.0.0.1]"; > </A>
    <A HREF="mailto:root@[127.0.0.1]"; > </A>

     and perhaps:
    <A HREF="mailto:admin@[127.0.0.1]"; > </A>    
    <A HREF="mailto:billing@[127.0.0.1]"; > </A>

Spammers use spambot spiders to pick off e-mail addresses from web pages. 
With no descriptive text before the ending </A> tag, the preceding mailtos 
will be invisible to anyone browsing your site, but spambots will pick them 
up. The [127.0.0.1] is a loopback address, which will cause spam to be sent 
to the spammer's originating domain!  Note: the postmaster address, at 
least, is required of all ISPs. 

Here's more info on spam bait and even a Perl script to automatically 
generate it! Or, simply include one of the following links on your web 
pages. Spam spiders will follow the links and pick up the bait, which might 
just cause them to send to bad e-mail addresses, spam themselves, etc. 

    <A HREF="http://www.io.com/~johnbob/chaff1.cgi"; > </A>
    <A HREF="http://www.io.com/~johnbob/chaff2.cgi"; > </A>
    <A HREF="http://www.io.com/~johnbob/chaff3.cgi"; > </A>
    <A HREF="http://www.io.com/~johnbob/chaff4.cgi"; > </A>
    <A HREF="http://www.io.com/~johnbob/chaff5.cgi"; > </A>
"
Note:  I show the anchors with the space removed (< A HREF...) because with 
the space the link would appear on the web page.  The "...chaff..." links 
just point to a spot that contains nothing but bogus email addresses (and a 
couple of legit 'postmaster@[127.0.0.1]' ones as well.

If you go to either of my web pages you will not see the above information 
but if you view the Page Source you will see the anchors in it.

    Toby "electronic junk mail...whodda thunk?" Erkson
    air_cooled_nut@pobox.com  <-- Please use this address for email responses
    '72 VW Squareback 1.6L bored and stroked to 2.0L
    '75 Porsche 914 1.8L, ORPCA member
    Portland, Oregon, http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/8501/