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General discussion

Help!?! How to hide an email address and still use it.

Apr 13, 2007 10:12PM PDT

I was looking through the internet. there are many ways including remailers. The most popular being craigslist. But I could'nt even get on there to do a remailing. The trouble is it is one of these email addresses that I want to hide. You know the ones I mean from craigslist - comm- or sale - .

I am sending information to someone and I did not want them to know my source.

So, what I want to do. Is be able to send the email and the other person click on it in some form, whereby they would not know the email address; but still be able to make a contact.

Discussion is locked

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Ask your friendly neigborhood Spammer!!
Apr 13, 2007 10:34PM PDT

Me thinketh that if you feel the need to hide your identity, you have less than honorable intentions, and I hope you won't find any help here.

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It's a spammer's life for me.
Apr 14, 2007 12:28AM PDT

That's what a spammer does, but you'll find asking how to do this to not elicit helpful responses.

If you need such an address, sign up with disposable email accounts at yahoo.com, hotmail and when you get spammed, stop using that account.

Bob

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Email address
Apr 20, 2007 3:05PM PDT

If you are referring to email address obfuscation (not hiding behind a fake address) that can be done easily by always posting your address with an addition string attached like "remove_this_to_email_me". That way automatic spiders will not be able to harvest your address.

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anony
Apr 24, 2007 7:34AM PDT

what you might be doing is signing up for a "free prize" and ur email is req'd, and in order to receive the "free prize" you need to verify the email by getting Their "automatic email" and then proceed to enter the information from that email to get the "free prize".
First of all it is possible to make a program for that. But who in the would sit down and write the code when u can make a new email account in <2mins?

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Thank you for the insight
May 10, 2007 8:41AM PDT

Another person's experience is always valuable.

I have been writing a web-site for a business friend. He wanted his email address in a banner, which I followed(customers always right) and informed him its not always a good idea because harvesters will grab it and spam him.
With your suggestion I can do a href=mailto:hisaddress_remove_this_to_emailme@domain.com and give him what he needs.

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Keeping your email address hidden from spam email harvesters
Jul 31, 2007 11:46PM PDT

I gather that you want to avoid Spammers using your addresses to SPAM others. This is a valid concern for a professional web developer.

The best way to keep the world from appropriating your addresses is to use a form for ALL email communications.

NEVER put an email address in the html as they will find it and exploit it! The Spammers have developed spiders that search for @ signs. If your client insists that he wants the email visible, put it into an image.

You will need a forms handler that allows you to specify the destination email address "behind the scenes". Check your hosting provider first. See what they provide in forms processors.

A simple search for form handlers will turn up several, find one you like that meets this need. Avoid the ones that have you include the email address in the form.