Spamproofing the Archives

From: Jeffrey Sharp <jss_at_subatomix.com>
Date: Sat Dec 7 22:57:02 2002

On Saturday, December 7, 2002, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
> Any reason for no database?

Simplicity.

> if you do a simple method like rotation or XOR it *will* be cracked. ...
> *Will* a spammer do such a thing? Probably not, but there is that
> possibility and it's fairly easy to crack

I'd say it's remote enough not to worry about it until later. Light
encryption with no database is easily and quickly implementable by me right
now (err, after college is out).

> I thought the idea was to have a link on the webpage:
>
> To: Classic Computers Mailing List
> From: <a href="/cgi/reply.cgi?id=user.id&subject=Stuff+about+the+PCjr">Sean Conner</a>
> Subject: Stuff about the PCjr
>
> The user would hit the link. The program would then display a form that
> the user would fill out:
>
> <p>This will send a message to the user indicating that you wish to
> talk to them. Fill in your email address and an email will be sent
> to the person indicating you want to talk to them. They will then
> respond to you.</p>

That's not my idea. In mine, the user clicks the email link and gets a page
that verifies he/she is human. From there they get another page that
divulges the actual email address.

Your idea is good, but I see one potential problem: people are lazy. For
many people, when they get one of your "someone wants to talk to you"
message, they may either procrastinate indefinitely or trash the message
outright. An inquisitor is more likely to get results if he can get his/her
message across in the initial contact. On the other hand, though, your idea
does put one more approval step into the process.

> (sorry for the C---I do all my CGI work in C).

I'll probably do mine in C as well.

-- 
Jeffrey Sharp
Received on Sat Dec 07 2002 - 22:57:02 GMT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:34:40 BST