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There are bots that scrap for emails on the monthly who's hiring etc posts. Made the mistake once of posting my email in the original formatting, got some funny

There are bots that scrap for emails on the monthly who's hiring etc posts. Made the mistake once of posting my email in the original formatting, got some funny scam emails. So they are still around

gabrielsroka 4y ago
Honest question, if I write name at example dot com have the bots not figured out that 'dot' means '.' and 'at' means '@' ?
- Shared404 4y ago
  I've had a few hit emails formatted like that, though not from HN.
- ransom1538 4y ago
  Do things like [myhnusername] @ gmail.com Which implies to replace [myhnusername] with their HN username. I used to scrape - this is not worth the time to fix or patch for.
- ecshafer 4y ago
  I can't see that being that difficult personally. You are already searching for string + @ + string + .com, string + at + string + dot + com isn't exactly rocket science. I have seen some people doing things like //\\//name\///at\\\///domain///\\com which might be more unexpected, and therefore might help. But any practice if it becomes common will be seen through.
- smt88 4y ago
  For most people, it doesn't matter at all if their email address is posted publicly like that. Any email address that someone has used to sign up for services for years is going to have been leaked anyway. There's very little value to just a plain email address with no password, no context, etc. If you posted your (let's say) Gmail address on HN, the spam level of your inbox wouldn't change. Gmail might work a bit harder filtering out some spam, but it would be lowest-common-denominator stuff that they easily recognize.
- shusaku 4y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1808/ https://xkcd.com/1808/
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
  Maybe they don’t want those email addresses anyway. People who are aware of spambots may not be the ripest targets for spam, so it’s not worth the cost of targeting them.
- codingdave 4y ago
  They haven't figured out what spaces are. I have just been putting a space before and after the @ for years. No spam problems. My guess is that spaces are so prolific that having to parse out every space in a page and then whether they are near special characters or keywords just isn't worth the trouble.

There are bots that scrap for emails on the monthly who's hiring etc posts. Made the mistake once of posting my email in the original formatting, got some funny scam emails. So they are still around

gabrielsroka 4y ago

Honest question, if I write name at example dot com have the bots not figured out that 'dot' means '.' and 'at' means '@' ?

Shared404 4y ago
I've had a few hit emails formatted like that, though not from HN.
ransom1538 4y ago
Do things like [myhnusername] @ gmail.com Which implies to replace [myhnusername] with their HN username. I used to scrape - this is not worth the time to fix or patch for.
ecshafer 4y ago
I can't see that being that difficult personally. You are already searching for string + @ + string + .com, string + at + string + dot + com isn't exactly rocket science. I have seen some people doing things like //\\//name\///at\\\///domain///\\com which might be more unexpected, and therefore might help. But any practice if it becomes common will be seen through.
smt88 4y ago
For most people, it doesn't matter at all if their email address is posted publicly like that. Any email address that someone has used to sign up for services for years is going to have been leaked anyway. There's very little value to just a plain email address with no password, no context, etc. If you posted your (let's say) Gmail address on HN, the spam level of your inbox wouldn't change. Gmail might work a bit harder filtering out some spam, but it would be lowest-common-denominator stuff that they easily recognize.
shusaku 4y ago
https://xkcd.com/1808/ https://xkcd.com/1808/
Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
Maybe they don’t want those email addresses anyway. People who are aware of spambots may not be the ripest targets for spam, so it’s not worth the cost of targeting them.
codingdave 4y ago
They haven't figured out what spaces are. I have just been putting a space before and after the @ for years. No spam problems. My guess is that spaces are so prolific that having to parse out every space in a page and then whether they are near special characters or keywords just isn't worth the trouble.