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Date:      Fri, 10 Apr 2015 14:12:55 -0400
From:      Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: email address being harvested from ports website
Message-ID:  <20150410181255.GA2891@gsp.org>
In-Reply-To: <5527D0BD.8060401@gmail.com>
References:  <5527D0BD.8060401@gmail.com>

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This may be well-intentioned, but it demonstrates a nearly-complete
lack of understanding of how spammers' address-harvesters work.

The techniques in use in the field are very sophisticated and unlikely to
be defeated by anyone who hasn't spent at least a decade studying them
in detail.  (And even then: probably not.  The existence of hundreds of
millions of 'bots changed the game markedly and there is no undoing that.)

The ONLY reasonable course of action, at this point, is to presume that
all email addresses are either (a) in the hands of spammers or (b) will
be in their hands soon, and plan defenses accordingly.  Any other approach
is doomed to fail and should be instantly dismissed with prejudice: the
only people it will impede in the slightest are non-spammers.

---rsk



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