getting SPAMED lately

[KB1THH]

A few weeks ago I updaded my profile here on E-ham to reflect that I'm a real person with a real address. Added pictures and comleted the BIO questionare.
 I don't hold a license yet but do not want any one
thinking I'm hiding behind a handle as I don't have a call as yet.
  My question is, has anyone been getting new spam mail
lately? In the past few weeks?
It just started on my end with one or two a day. Not bad ones, just unsolicited. Loans and that sort of stuff.
  I guess my real question is, can/are E-mail address
be farmed out of this site unknowengly(sp)?

Thanks
Joe

   

[KE4DRN]

hi,

yes, there are programs out there that crawl on the web and harvest email addresses all the time.

73 james

[KE4WLE]

As stated, it is possible to farm web sites for email addresses, but here are some ways to not get farmed/spammed:

1 - Do not include your email in forum posts or any place where it is in simple text format. (i.e. in a web page/blog etc.)

2 - If you *do* include your email address in a web page/blog/post be sure to obfuscate it. An example of this is: name _at_ domain _dot_ com, or name @ domain . com, or name *at* domain *dot* com.  You get the idea.

3 - Appreciate sites like eham that make it difficult for bots to farm email addresses by composing the email address out of graphic images that make it more difficult for bots to farm your address - there are various ways sites protect their users from bots and eHam is pretty good about it.

4 - Simply get a better spam filter:
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/
For personal use...

http://www.barracudanetworks.com/
for company use (these work GREAT)...

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/173
For those familiar with virtualization...

[GM0ONX]

 All sound advise. Another option is to route your email via googlemail and then get it to forward to its final destination. It has an excellent antispam filter and not much gets through.

Len GM0ONX