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A Harvest-Proof Email Method |
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Written by Will Bontrager
February 14, 2007
Defeating Email Harvesters
I wrote the following recently to the LED...
> [regarding mailto: links] There must be a fool-proof way
> to implement one-click email without the danger of the
> address being harvested. There's gotta be. This is an
> intense wish. - LED Digest 2310
The wish has come true, folks.
While in the hospital a short time ago (urgent abdominal surgery), I
had a lot of time to meditate and imagine without the pressures of
day-to-day business intruding. And I figured out how to do it. The system is harvester-proof. No doubt. The email address can not even
be harvested by manually clicking on the link. The system never
discloses the real destination email address to any party, robot or
human...
Click this link to try it: http://flow-to.com/email/w.u1171228517w.mth
The link can be on web pages, in emails, used in news groups, even published off-line in newspapers or on highway billboards, just like any other URL.
When the link is clicked, two things happen:
(i) your email program opens a new email form or window with the "To" and possibly other fields pre-filled, and
(ii) your browser opens a web page. Depending on your browser, the web page will be blank or it will contain normal web page content.
When the email is sent, it will be routed to the correct destination. No JavaScript required. Nothing fancy. Site owners simply replace their current mailto: links with their harvester-proof email link. Then they're good to go. For site visitors, their email program works just like expected. They can specify Cc and Bcc destinations. They can even send attachments. But they won't see your real email address.
Currently, the system has a 512k email size limit. The limit may change in the future.
I realize stating this system is harvester-proof may be setting myself up for apparent contradiction. Although the system itself is harvester-proof, there are many ways an email address can be compromised. When that happens, the owner of the address may tend to think it was the fault of this system. Sometime soon, I hope, I'll have time to write an article about some of the many ways an address can end up on spammers' lists. Maybe an LEDer or several would like to list ways it can happen.
The system is beta and is free to use. There is nothing like a live installation to see where improvements can be made: http://flow-to.com
Give it a whirl. And, please, I am open to hearing any and all suggestions for improvement and possible vulnerabilities to be alert for.
Oh, and tell your friends. Let's take a big byte out of spammer hiney.
Will Bontrager
email: http://flow-to.com/email/w.u1171228517w.mth
 this post ran in issue 2347 of LED Digest: Email Harvesters Defeated
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