The FALLBACK_TEXT is plain text (usually already munged, That uses all numbers and lower-case letters -Īgain not easily identifiable (to a machine) as something encoded. The ENCODED_HTML is base-36 encoded bytes (usually) randomly generated so as not be be easily identifiable. JavaScript to locate the encoded e-mail addresses.
With the default "JavaScript with DHTML" method, the code that is generated contains an HTML element that looks like this:
Or the fallback can be replaced with a message explaining how to obtain the address. This is not quite as secure as the JavaScript method so, for the paranoid,Īlternate text munging techniques can be selected ("automatic fallback"), (only ASCII encoding would work for mailto links, so the non-JavaScript part doesn't provide a link). Of textual munging, ASCII encoding, and HTML hiding on a second copy of the address Something (even if it is not a convenient clickable link), we use a combination The web with a JavaScript-enabled browser. The JavaScript makes a convenient link for most users. It also allows multiple e-mail addresses to be decoded by a single in buggy browsers): if the code fails, then the fallback text remains. Unlike some other JavaScript methods, this method is robust against JavaScript Well-known to spambot writers, writing a general and efficient detector and decoder wouldīe hard, since the code and decoder can be separated). On all the interactive JavaScript out there and even if this exact script became (a spambot cannot run JavaScript willy-nilly, otherwise it would get stuck Munged addresses, it would be unreasonably difficult for a spambot to recognise them as such
My obfuscator produces HTML that combines two techniques.īy separating the HTML from the JavaScript andĮnsuring that neither has any features that distinguish them as containing Rather, our aim should be to encode the address in a way that makes itĪll but impossible for the spambot to recognise it as an e-mail addressĪs distinct from the World-Wide Web's worth of non-address data. (blind people, or those whose native language is not yours). detailed instructions orīut this makes it difficult for most people, and perhaps impossible for some We could use something that a human can interpret,īut that is difficult for computers to understand (eg. On the other hand, simple methods of obfuscation such as ASCII encoding have beenĪny conceivable spambot to decode the address, since otherwise browsers (also HTML decoders)Ĭould not display them in an intelligable form. It is also convenient to provide a "mail this address" linkĪddress without having to copy the address into their e-mail program.
Users, whether they are using an old or limited browser (eg. So any method that hides e-mail addresses from spambots should not hide them from If your web page is important, then it is important that it be accessible to everyone,
The e-mail obfuscator generator is implemented in JavaScript and also, independently, in
That should be accessible to anyone, however they are reading your web page. This page describes my own anti-spam e-mail obfuscator (or "munging") the addresses in your web page so the spambots don't see them. There are many techniques for obfuscating (programs that scan the entire web for anything that looks like an e-mail address The above tool converts your email address to HTML Dec code and then wraps in a script which you can cut and paste into your websites' HTML.Anti-spam e-mail obfuscator - details Anti-spam e-mail obfuscatorĮ-mail addresses stored on web pages are susceptible to harvesting Instead they crawl the HTML code behind the page (which you don't see, unless you view the page source), and we can take advantage of this by obscuring the email address in the HTML, but making sure that humans who use website browsers will still be able to see and click on your email address. These web crawling programs don't surf the web using a browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox as we humans do. Instead, they send out bots/webcrawlers (programs they have written) which follow links on websites and 'scrape' any email addresses they find for inclusion in their lists. They don't manually visit websites to gather new email addresses for the mailing lists, because ain't nobody got time for dat. Advert Email Obfuscation Type Your Email:īelieve it or not, spammers have lives too.