great way to provide email links without making them susceptible to bots

[causticVapor]

Very simple. Just use an algorithm that hashes the characters, then put them in an array, and upon the user loading the page, run the client-executed script that generates the characters based on a reversal of the algorithm and puts them into whatever you want... one could use this in anything, really, and it goes beyond web pages... it could be used to jumble stuff in VB.
Here's a very simple example with my page:

(in this case results in cV@mad dot scientist dot com)


'generateEmailAddress - generates email based on hashtable, renders to client
'
'algorithm used: (ascii code+102)/64.3
'The decoding algorithm is exactly the opposite.

Function generateEmailAddress()
Dim letterArray(20)
letterArray(0)=3.1259720062208398133748055987558
letterArray(1)=2.9237947122861586314152410575428
letterArray(2)=2.5816485225505443234836702954899
letterArray(3)=3.2814930015552099533437013996890
letterArray(4)=3.0948678071539657853810264385692
letterArray(5)=3.1415241057542768273716951788491
letterArray(6)=2.3017107309486780715396578538103
letterArray(7)=3.3748055987558320373250388802488
letterArray(8)=3.1259720062208398133748055987558
letterArray(9)=3.2192846034214618973561430793157
letterArray(10)=3.1570762052877138413685847589425
letterArray(11)=3.2970451010886469673405909797823
letterArray(12)=3.3903576982892690513219284603421
letterArray(13)=3.2192846034214618973561430793157
letterArray(14)=3.3748055987558320373250388802488
letterArray(15)=3.3903576982892690513219284603421
letterArray(16)=2.3017107309486780715396578538103
letterArray(17)=3.1259720062208398133748055987558
letterArray(18)=3.3125972006220839813374805598756
letterArray(19)=3.2814930015552099533437013996890

For concatenationCounter=0 to 19
generateEmailAddress=generateEmailAddress & chr((letterArray(concatenationCounter)*64.3)-102)
Next
End Function

[fancyf]

mailto: ;fancy@ ;fancysplace. ;com
would that work too? (without the spaces obvioulsly...)

[nothing]

What about a form? That would work too.

[CompGeek01]

What I do is just use a simple javascript function that takes in a name and server and then concatenates the two and returns the result. Unsure how bots are handling this now-adays.

[causticVapor]

Originally posted by fancyf

mailto: ;fancy@ ;fancysplace. ;com
would that work too? (without the spaces obvioulsly...)

That works too. :D


It's just that this is really good against prying, prying eyes - it's the technique M$ used to hide the names of the staff in their IE4 easter egg.

[causticVapor]

Originally posted by CompGeek01
What I do is just use a simple javascript function that takes in a name and server and then concatenates the two and returns the result. Unsure how bots are handling this now-adays.

That works as well - and'd probably be good enough to trick any bot.

[Paco103]

I honestly doubt bot programmers even bother trying to decrypt even your simplest jumblings. There are enough un-protected addresses on the web to harvest, I certainly wouldn't waste my time trying to parse all the millions of combinations of distraction people do. So far my favorite has been a script that filled your HTML pages with invisible (to users, not to bots) address links, so that mail bots would bomb themselves with mailer daemons. Unfortunately it's probably not a good idea in practice, let alone if it really matters since their "from" addresses are usually random too. It was however nice to sit back and think about spammers having to wade through their own mail boxes in theory!

[causticVapor]

ehe, this just makes it impossible for ANYTHING or anyone looking through who hasn't much of a clue of the program's operation from gathering an address. A bit of a paranoid measure, but a measure nonetheless.:p