[LINK] Email Obfuscation Helps Spammers: Google returns 27 million results for "* at * dot com"

[Kim Holburn]

http://typewriting.org/2006/06/19/Email_Obfuscation_Helps_Spammers/

> Email Obfuscation Helps Spammers
>
> Some people think email obfuscation is a good way to fight spam,  
> that it's somehow more difficult for spammers to understand  
> "account at domain dot com" or "account&64;domain.com" than  
> "account at domain.com". These people are wrong. They will often  
> readily admit that they don’t think email obfuscation will stop all  
> spam, but it still makes them feel like they’re doing something in  
> the war on drugs terrorism spam. Here's what they're doing: in  
> addition to making email more difficult for legitimate uses,  
> they're actually making it easier for spammers.
>
> Google returns 27 million results for "* at * dot com". That's 27  
> million email addresses waiting to be spammed. Google doesn’t allow  
> you to search for the "@" sign, so that’s 27 million email  
> addresses that wouldn’t be available on Google if they were not  
> obfuscated. Email obfuscation not only doesn’t hurt spammers — it  
> actually helps them. Where it doesn’t make it easier, it acts as a  
> placebo, making people feel more comfortable and complacent living  
> in a world of spam. Like everything else, if you don’t want your  
> email address publicly-available, don’t put it on the public web.  
> But if we want to be able to publish email addresses on the web, we  
> can’t continue this half-hearted war on spam, hiding under our beds  
> of obfuscation and hoping they won’t find us.
> Posted by Scott Reynen on Jun 19, 2006 — 4:08 pm | 21 comments |  
> Tags: email spam


--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
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Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961