Message Board

Newbie/Basic Questions

Not Understanding Entirely

Author: C.Beck (25 Jan 05 12:19pm)

My brain tends to work in strange ways. I'm not fully understanding the concept here. Most of our pages have a mailto link at the bottom of the page that says "E-mail the webmaster." We also have other pages that list the directors and managers of our organizations departments. When I go to one of those pages, do I still see the link? If I do, when I click on the link what happens? Does the link display that Honeypot disclaimer?

These are probably the most basic of the basic questions you get here, but I'm not fully understanding it. Harvesting is our main reason we get spam, and anything we can do to stop it would be great. Thank you.

Re: Not Understanding Entirely

Author: M.Prince (25 Jan 05 1:05pm)

No problem, sorry it's not totally clear how the system works. Let me try and answer your question.

Installing a honey pot does not affect any of the existing email addresses on your web pages. Instead what it does is create a new web page from which "spam trap" email addresses are displayed. We also provide instructions on how to link to that page in such a way that harvesters will follow the links, but human beings will not. The honey pot page is the only page that will display the legal disclaimer, although some sites have chosen to include our Model Terms language in their existing terms of use policies.

When a harvester visits your honey pot we can track them and share that information with the rest of Project Honey Pot's members. Eventually, that data can be used to block harvesters from visiting your web pages, or hiding your existing email addresses from when when they do. We're working on that functionality, but it's not up and running yet.

In the meantime, whether or not you install a honey pot, you can hide your existing email addresses from spam harvesters using various techniques. We provide a tutorial on how to do this available here:

http://www.projecthoneypot.org/how_to_avoid_spambots.php

Again, you can take advantage of these techniques whether or not you install a honey pot on your side. Hope that helps. Thanks for your interest in the Project!

Re: Not Understanding Entirely

Author: J.Johnson (8 Feb 05 3:02am)

Great as PHP is, it will not prevent your addresses from being harvested. There are a number of more user friendly ways to protect your addresses that the munging sugested on the PHP site. The one drawback is that they require that JavaScript be enabled, and there are a few people who deliberately disable it.

A graphic representation is essential, since newer harvesters can harvest text reptesentations. Alone, without making it clickable, it will also present a more aesthetic representation of an email address, and not require an explanation, as does munging.

You can also use the graphic representation with either of the following to make a clickable link:

Try this advanced JavaScript email link generator from Rumkin.com for simple or customized mailto: links that break the standard hexadecimal encrypting into chunks to foil spambots: http://rumkin.com/tools/mailto_encoder.

Or install Master Spambot Buster from WillMaster.com: http://willmaster.com/master/spambotbuster/.

Re: Not Understanding Entirely

Author: M.Prince (8 Feb 05 12:04pm)

Good suggestions!

We also implemented our own Javascript email address encryption tool which you can access here:

http://www.projecthoneypot.org/how_to_avoid_spambots_3.php

We're also going to roll out the http:BL before too long. That will allow any member of the Project to automatically stop known harvesters from accessing their websites. Watch these pages for details!

Post Edited (8 Feb 05 11:04am)