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

[Kim Holburn]

On 2007/Jun/18, at 12:16 AM, Ivan Trundle wrote:
> But what I don't understand is the multiplication of results by  
> Kim. My understanding is that Google lists the number of results  
> across all pages, then shows a subset of that number per your  
> preferences set.
>
> Consequently, 'World' Google sees 2,000 more hits than 'Oz' Google.  
> Neither sees 19+ million, though.
>
> Or am I missing something vital here? What are the 'hits' that  
> you're referring to, Kim?

I have google set to show 50 results per page.  It says there are  
394,000 pages and I assume each with 50 hits, the last page may of  
course have less than 50.  That's why I did the multiply.  That is  
right isn't it?

Actually I just realised that it says "English" pages because I have  
restricted the language to English so there may be many more pages.

> Either way, there are plenty of e-mail addresses for spammers to  
> grab, nonetheless.

> On 17/06/2007, at 11:41 PM, Kim Holburn wrote:
>> On 2007/Jun/17, at 1:44 PM, Rick Welykochy wrote:
>>> Kim Holburn wrote:
>>>
>>>> The string "at*dot*au" gets 19,400,000 hits.
>>>
>>> I get 405,000 hits. The URL is:
>>> http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=at*dot*au&btnG=Search&meta=
>>
>> at*dot*au
>> Results 1 - 10 of about 396,000 for at*dot*au. (0.14 seconds)
>>
>> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22at*dot*au%22
>> "at*dot*au"
>> Results 1 - 50 of about 394,000 English pages for "at*dot*au".  
>> (0.26 seconds)
>> which I calculate is 19,700,000 hits

--
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