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Thread ID: 37583 2003-09-11 20:15:00 website anti spam perl scripts garyasta (1151) Press F1
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174692 2003-09-11 20:15:00 I have a website that appears to originate a number of spam emails because of my email address being on the pages. Does anyone know a relatively simple perl script that can be used to stop this spamming problem?

Gary 		garyasta (1151)
174693 2003-09-11 21:25:00 Excuse my ignorance if I am wrong, but I thought that if you displayed your email address as a link, eg "Click here to email me" then the spambots cannot harvest it?

Anyway, if you are wanting a perl script you should be able to find one with the help of Google. 		Susan B (19)
174694 2003-09-11 21:32:00 Susan, the bots won't look at the page like you and I do and think "damn, no email address to email them" they'll be looking at the whole source of the page. If the email address is in there it will be able to get it. Just a matter of searching for the @ and then looking either side til you hit the space. :)

Wouldn't surprise me if the bots are picking up on the (at) type stuff as well. 		-=JM=- (16)
174695 2003-09-11 22:36:00 Damn, I might have known I couldn't rely on everything I read on the internet. :8}

I did sort of wonder about that, since bots go and read the meta tags and stuff, so why not the email addys?

Thanks JM. :-) 		Susan B (19)
174696 2003-09-12 00:28:00 Gary,

Is your HTML produced from the Perl script?

JavaScript maybe easier to use if you aren't using Perl to generate your HTML.

I'll show you Javascript. Also if you like to post the URL of the website, I can see where they pick up the email address and show you ways to make it harder for them to get.

for Javascript:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
var username = "yourname";
var domain ="yourdomain.co.nz";
document write('<a href=\"mailto:' + username + '@'+ domain +'\">');
document.write(username + '@' + domain + '</a>');
// -->
</SCRIPT>

if Perl/CGI script is being used then it's completely different and I would need to see part of the source of how the email address is generated. 		Kame (312)
174697 2003-09-12 00:31:00 I would have thought a bot could pick up on that Kame. Or maybe I've just got myself lost. -=JM=- (16)
174698 2003-09-12 00:42:00 Unless the bot can read scripts, run scripts etc, then it can't. It'd have to be a bot based on a browser if it were going to read that, as I still haven't come across a bot that can read scripts. Kame (312)
174699 2003-09-12 01:16:00 Thanks for all the comments so far!

Kame

I am not specifically using perl scripts. I didn't know that there were any differences to the processes.

The website is www.profitness.net.nz

Any further comments would be appreciated.

Cheers
Gary 		garyasta (1151)
174700 2003-09-12 01:43:00 where you have Gary ( * garyasta *at* ihug.co.nz) just change it with the Javascript.

There's two places I noticed on that first page that displays it, you'll need to change all pages that display the above line without the * and *at* (did it so you won't be spammed on here either).

Just use the same script I posted above change the variables to the below.
username = garyasta
domain = ihug.co.nz

All you have to do is overwrite <a href"mailto:...</a> with the javascript

I'm not sure how the formatting will look with the code used above. 		Kame (312)
174701 2003-09-12 01:48:00 Oh another thing,

If you want it to display as Gary instead of your email address,

Change:

document.write(username + '@' + domain + '</a>');

to:

document.write('Gary'+'</a>');

You may like to do the same script used for info *at* profitness dot co dot nz. 		Kame (312)
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