99% of computer users just want their computer to help them out. Nobody wants their machine turned into a fraudulent, consumeristic hell. People sign up for one thing and, in short order, they get pitches for mortgage rates, Nigerian wire transfers, penis enlargement and Russian whores.
Filters can be installed but not everyone has the technical wherewithal to select the proper program or plug-in for their configuration. Few have the patience to scan for false positives and fewer have the patience for the mere possibility of false positives. Aliasing is a nearly bulletproof method but requires technical setup (your own email server), knowledge, time and responsibility that is beyond the average Jack & Jill.
99% of computer users don’t want spam in the first place. Spambots are usually the first in line to retrieve your email address. Spambots are programs that scan the source code of webpages for the telltale “@” character along with valid root domain such as “.com”.
Those with the necessary skills for programming and a server that allows scripting can turn the tables on spam by exploiting the biggest weakness of spambots and computers in general—piss poor pattern recognition. With that in mind, programmers should give spambots what they want.
The following program is a “honeypot.” As the name suggests, it is intended to attract nonhuman creatures—in this case, spambots—and poison their source. The honeypot randomly generates 1000 fake, and theoretically valid, email addresses. When the spambot comes across this page, it will find new addresses from international locales such as “.de”, “.uk” and “.au”—everywhere where wealthy white people in need of a schlong stretching live. When it comes back for more, it will find 1000 new useless addresses.
The objective is two-fold:
Make the spam database crash or become unmanageable. Significantly raise the cost of sending spam.
The program is written in VBScript and requires a Windows server to execute. Watch it in action here. You can download the source here or simply cut & paste from below. Name the file anything you want as long as it ends in “.asp” and feel free to modify the code to your preferences. If VBScript isn’t your thing, feel free to rewrite it in whatever language you want—as long as it generates HTML for the spambots. In other words, Javascript won’t work.
The important thing is that you use this and teach others to use it. 25,000 people with this page sitting on their server can do serious damage to a spammer’s pocketbook. Current regular expression methods can’t deal with it. Spread the word.
Simplicity is beautiful. Contact me if you have any questions.
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<% Randomize Timer %>
<%
For emailgenerator = 1 to 1000
fakename = ""
upperlimit = 14
lowerlimit = 4
numberofletters = Int((upperlimit - lowerlimit + 1)*Rnd() + lowerlimit)
For namegenerator = 1 to numberofletters
upperlimit = 122
lowerlimit = 97
letter = Int((upperlimit - lowerlimit + 1)*Rnd() + lowerlimit)
fakename = fakename & chr(letter)
next
fakename = fakename & "@"
upperlimit = 14
lowerlimit = 4
numberofletters = Int((upperlimit - lowerlimit + 1)*Rnd() + lowerlimit)
For namegenerator = 1 to numberofletters
upperlimit = 122
lowerlimit = 97
letter = Int((upperlimit - lowerlimit + 1)*Rnd() + lowerlimit)
fakename = fakename & chr(letter)
next
rootarray = array(".com",".org",".net",".edu",".us",".co.uk",".org.uk",".net.uk",".edu.uk",
".com.au",".org.au",".net.au",".de",".co",".tv")
upperlimit = ubound(rootarray)
lowerlimit = lbound(rootarray)
rootofemail = Int((upperlimit - lowerlimit + 1)*Rnd() + lowerlimit)
fakename = fakename & rootarray(rootofemail)
response.write "<a href=""mailto:" & fakename & """>" & fakename & "</a><br>"
next
%>
