Posted by Stacy (AZ) on November 25, 1998 at 14:40:32:
After seeing “Enemy of the State”, and hearing some of the recent expert discussions about the possibilities for invasion of personal privacy, I wouldn’t assume anything on the internet is safe. My philosophy is to accept that much of what appears to be private and secure is not.
Stacy
Stop the Inspamity! - Posted by Ben
Posted by Ben on November 22, 1998 at 12:00:22:
J.P.
I’m not accusing anyone of anything but I have been posting to this forum for a month or so and coincidentally during that time period I have received more real-estate related
spam than I have ever seen in my life. Is someone poaching our e-mail addresses? I would hate to think that you guys are selling lists of forum participants. Say it ain’t so!
Is anyone else having the same problem?
Ben
Re: Stop the Inspamity! - Posted by hk CA
Posted by hk CA on November 22, 1998 at 19:24:32:
I have not seen any increase in junk mail since beginning posting to this site. Maybe it’s from another site you signed up with.
Our Privacy Policy - Posted by J.P. Vaughan
Posted by J.P. Vaughan on November 22, 1998 at 12:52:33:
It has always been our policy to NEVER give out email
addresses or any other identifying information about
our visitors and customers. As you can imagine, with
an email subscriber list of over 18,000 names, we have
been approached to sell this data many times. We vowed
three years ago when we first launched this site that
we would NEVER disclose this information. And we do not.
There are, however, programs that can come through the
news groups and “lift” the email addresses posted here.
Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about that.
J.P. Vaughan
Re: Stop the Inspamity! - Posted by Brad Crouch
Posted by Brad Crouch on November 23, 1998 at 04:34:26:
HK,
Naw! It’s happening to too many folks here, including me . . . and a lot of it is real estate related. And “visiting” other sites where you don’t post and leave an e-mail address, can’t provide your address to others.
Just highlight the offending message and press the “delete” key.
Yesterday someone gave a good idea which was to insert “NOSPAM” between the user name ant the “@” sign when giving your e-mail address, prior to posting. This should take care of the “automated” process of collecting addresses.
Leaving an e-mail address with your posts here is kinda important, because if you don’t . . . you may not get many responses. I know I personally don’t respond to a post without an e-mail address. It’s like responding to a person who is not real (or “for real”, anyway).
Brad
JP, do you have a problem with… - Posted by MichaelR (NoVA)
Posted by MichaelR (NoVA) on November 22, 1998 at 17:55:28:
Us using anti-spam measures in our E-Mail addresses? I know the policy is that it must be a valid address, but if you’re willing to let us post as, for instance, “michaelNOSPAM@rhineco.com” it would hopefully foil the harvesters. The only downside is that the E-Mail reminders for posts would all bounce back to you.
The SPAM generated from posting here really is annoying.
Thanks,
Michael
visiting a page can leave email address - Posted by Geff
Posted by Geff on November 23, 1998 at 20:36:01:
I just wanted to point out one thing. You most definitely can get spammed or unsolicited email by just visiting a web page. There are many programs which capture your email address… much like Caller ID for the telephone.
Geff
Good Idea… - Posted by J.P. Vaughan
Posted by J.P. Vaughan on November 22, 1998 at 21:07:35:
I think that’s a good idea, Michael. Feel free to do so.
JPV
Re: JP, do you have a problem with… - Posted by Tom Brown
Posted by Tom Brown on November 22, 1998 at 19:17:01:
I think a better solution, although not a perfect one, would be to use the junk mail features of your email program.
If you use a false email address and it bounces back to JP, just think of all the problems it will cause him because of the numbers of people that use this site.
visiting a page can leave email address – BUNK - Posted by DJ Busch
Posted by DJ Busch on November 24, 1998 at 04:02:01:
Geff,
There is absolutely, positively no way any web server can obtain your e-mail address during the process of browsing. All the server gets is your IP address, which is impossible to extract an e-mail address from (unless you own that user’s ISP).
There are programs, however, that scan certain web pages, and follow the links contained on them (like the message board here). They then pull all the “mailto” tags out of them and compile the result into a tidy little list of e-mail addresses, which are then sold.
Hakuna Matata
DJ Busch
Re: JP, do you have a problem with… - Posted by deborah
Posted by deborah on November 23, 1998 at 11:57:42:
JP is a she.
It depends on how their backend is… - Posted by MichaelR (NoVA)
Posted by MichaelR (NoVA) on November 22, 1998 at 19:54:55:
I can’t filter out all the spam effectively, as I have over 25 E-Mail addresses coming in. I get close to 3,000 E-Mails a day (many SPAM); and if I filter too hard I lose things I need.
Whether or not the bounces would cause a problem for them is a function of how their backend is set up.
Michael
It can and does happen - here’s how - Posted by Geff
Posted by Geff on November 24, 1998 at 12:27:50:
you might want to do some research on things before you try and debunk something, because you are way off here.
Essentially when someone visits your site, a Java script triggers a hidden form in your page that e-mails you an empty message. However, since the “action” of the form was an e-mail, it will include the name(sometimes) and e-mail address of the visitor. Nothing magic here, any high school kid with Java experience could do it for you.
Again, do some research before you comment on something you know nothing about.
Re: It can and does happen - here’s how - Posted by Mr Donald
Posted by Mr Donald on November 25, 1998 at 24:32:21:
Not with version 4 of IE or Netscape browsers. They’re aware of this trick, and have security features to alert you to this subterfuge.
Also, if you use a mail client other than that provided by the browser, such as Eudora, you’ll know right away that an attempt to send out mail is occuring as the application will activate and open up.
Re: It can and does happen - here’s how - Posted by Geff
Posted by Geff on November 25, 1998 at 01:33:49:
You do have a good point on that one. They are aware of that particlar method. There are others too though. I personally don’t know how they work. And soon, they will be able to thwart those as well. But as long as there are creative people, they will keep coming up with new ways to get your email address. I don’t think we can ever stop that.
Geff