Re: how spammers got my email??

From: Stefan Kanthak (dont.delete-this.dont.remove-this.nospam_at_usenet.arcornews.de)
Date: 09/07/05 

Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 01:18:26 +0200

"Patrick Dickey" <pd1ckey43@msn.com.removethis> wrote:

[...]
 
> So, it's wise to not use your real e-mail address in public newsgroups,
> or to alter it in such a way that a human being will know the correct
> format, but a bot won't.

NO!
It's completely braindead to munge addresses since this even generates
more traffic: spammers use random From: and To: they harvest from usenet
and web pages etc.
If the From: happens to be valid but the To: not then either the first
SMTP server (in case the domain part is munged) or the MX for the
addressee's domain (in case the local part is munged) creates a bounce
to the poor soul whose address has been abused.
In parallel the postmaster of the SMTP server creating the bounce is
informed too.

So: DON'T MUNGE ADDRESSES, but use a valid From: (optionally with "nospam"
or "removethis" in the local part) and discard all mail sent to this box,
and use a valid Reply-To: to receive answers from other people.

The other argument is: complete email addresses as used by well-configured
clients (typically) have the form: display name <email.address@fqdn>
There are other notations as well. Current clients don't display the
email address, but the display name (guess where it's name comes from.-).
The user doesn't notice the munged address!
If I ever get a bounce due to a munged address I killfile this braindead
person: address mungers don't deserve to be read.

*PLONK*

Stefan