|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
Invasion of the Email Snatchers
They're sneaky. And stealthy. They're quiet and mostly unobtrusive, but once you've been visited by them, you'll know it. Because you'll be inundated with a seemingly never-ending stream of spam-mails. They're email harvesting robots, and chances are you've been visited by one. What these insidious creatures do is crawl your site, much like the search engine spiders do, and collect any and all email addresses they find there. Many of them crawl your entire site, following every link, gathering email addresses from your guestbook, your message boards, databases, and everywhere else they can get to. What happens next is so sinister, so unthinkable; I can barely say it. They put your email addresses on CDRom and sell them- as opt-in lists. You've seen them, "20,000 targeted email addresses for only $29.95!", or my personal favorite, "Send 10 Bazillion emails- WITHOUT SPAMMING!!". What you didn't know was that it was YOUR email address they were selling. To find out if your site has been visited by an email harvester, you only need to look at your logs. If your web host provides you with your stats, you can look in the Browser report for any of the following:
If you don't have a stats program, you can examine your logs for visits from these agents. The easiest way to do this is to download them and open them in a program with a search function (like Wordpad). Then you can search for the names listed above. So, what can you do to protect your site from these evil robots? Unfortunately, there's no single magic solution. There are, however steps you can take to discourage them. The first thing you can do is create a Robots Exclusion file. This is simply a text file named robots.txt that you place in your root directory. What this file does is tells robots where they can and cannot go (as well as which robots can and cannot visit your site). The drawback of using this file to combat email harvesting robots is that as a rule, the robots.txt file is based on a sort of robot honor system. That is to say that you are assuming that any robot that visits will ask for and comply with the directives that you put there. Unfortunately, harvesting robots are typically ill-mannered robots that ignore this file. For more information on Robot Exclusion, visit the Robots Exclusion Standard A really fun solution is to use a cgi-script that punishes bad robots. What these do is to direct the robot to a page full of fake email addresses- lots and lots of them. So, what the spammer gets is a whole lot of bounced email messages, which will discourage them from visiting you again. The downside of this method is that they do also collect the valid email addresses. Also, most scripts of this type have a little disclaimer attached to them stating that they won't be held responsible for any legal issues that arise from the use of their script- and that has to make you wonder. There are other scripts that hide your email address from the robots, but not your site visitors. This is a great solution for smaller sites that don't have more than one or two addresses listed. You can find both types of scripts at the CGI Resource Index Another handy script is one that will check to see if a robot is friendly, and if not it will put it to sleep for say, 10,000 minutes. This will cause the robot to terminate the request and move on to another victim.$number = $ENV{REMOTE_ADDR}; if ($name =~ /foo.com/i) { The last option is, in my humble opinion, the best option. If you have the ability to modify your .htaccess file, you can specify certain host agents that are not allowed to visit your site using the mod_rewrite file. This effectively blocks the offending robots from ever touching your site. You should definitely check with your hosting provider to see whether or not you can make such a modification. Most hosts will be more than happy to make the modification for you. For those of you willing and able to make the changes yourself, just add the following to your.htaccess file: RewriteEngine on While these are all effective measures to fight the Email Snatchers, there are new robots evolving every day. It's important to stay informed with the latest tools that the spammers are using. Some excellent sources of information can be found at: Search Engine World Apache Today SpiderHunter.com -------------------------------- © Copyright 2001 Sharon Davis. When she is not waging war on spammers, she is the owner of 2Work-At-Home.Com, Work At Home Articles.net and the Editor of the site's monthly ezine, America's Home. In her spare time she reminisces about what it was like to have spare time. To subscribe to her free ezine, Click Here
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Internet Tip of the Week: Information Overload We receive so much information on the Internet, especially via email, that many times we have difficulty separating the good "stuff" from the junk. Most of us put unsolicited email (spam) in the junk category. By the time we weed through all that "stuff" however, we are approaching information overload, and may give "short shrift" to the really good information we receive. Where Did The Word Spam Come From? We've all become familiar with the term spam. It's become so commonplace that even people who never use computers are familiar with the term spam. That single word has become part of our every day vocabulary that we use in personal conversations. The Cybermagic of Whitelists Before we start getting deep into the meat of this article it's important to explain some standard terminology to make sure the rest of this article makes sense. Junk Mail Works! Junk mail works.Why does it work?How does it work? The Definition of Spam Spam can bring down your website faster than a speeding bullet, but what is spam? Originally, spam referred to unwanted emails. We all hate the tons of email we receive day after day trying to get us to buy that or click this. I can't go a day without someone trying to steal my personal information so they can get into my bank account. Does everyone else get the fake paypal emails? They look just like paypal emails, but usually if you look at the links they have ip numbers instead of paypal.com in the address. Obviously, letters from Nigeria, fake paypal emails, and the host of other either crooked or just plain annoying emails can clearly be defined as spam. Of course, email newsletters that have been subscribed to are wanted and would not be spam. I love getting my daily webmaster newsletters. They are great for helping me stay on top of what is going on in the website development world. What Exactly is Spam? Spam, as defined in the context of computers, the Internet and electronic messaging, is a term used to designate unsolicited bulk electronic messaging and communication. In particular, spam is unsolicited bulk mailings that are commercially oriented. It is most commonly used in advertising, but it is also used to perpetrate religious, political or other types of messages. Spam is, often times, considered the electronic equivalent of junk postal mail, telemarketing or broadcast faxing. Spam got its bad name and reputation from the advertisement of ill reputable and questionable products, such as pornography, pyramid schemes, fad products, pump-and-dump stocks, etc. Spasms & Spamocidal Mania Below is a letter I wrote to the following organizations: Your Dolphin E-mail Caught In Spam Tuna Net? Let me ask a couple of questions: Is Email Dying? 2004 was really a year when the whole subject of email and spam has been at the forefront of the minds of internet marketers. The War on Spam: Google Fights Back Google is engaged in a war. It is a war on spam. With new strategies and filters ready to put into place, the search engine is adding new firepower to its arsenal almost daily. Webmasters and SEO Consultants alike are terrified; fearing what the future holds for them. But for those of us that believe in the cause, the future isn't scary. In fact, the future looks very bright. Internet Tip of the Week: Cease and Desist While we all admit that unsolicited commercial email is a real pain, I sometimes wonder if the anti-spam zealots are going too far. Last week I was in Costa Rica, and the only practical way to communicate home was by email. I maintain an AOL account just for that purpose when traveling, and was amazed to find out when I got home, that I only received about half of the email which was sent - some of which was important. Spammer in the Slammer: Jeremy Jaynes Sentenced to Nine Years Will other spammers take heed? Don't count on it. Beware of the Newest Activity Online: Phishing No. I'm not talking here about the outdoor activity enjoyed by many. And no again; I did not misspell it. Phishing is the name given to the latest online scam where millions of unwary Americans are getting their identities stolen. ANTI-S*P^A#M: Protecting Your Web Sites Email Address(es) Did you know that there are software programs that viewweb sites and steal email addresses? It's called"harvesting" because they're harvesting your email addressfrom your site. This may be one of the reasons your web siteemail address is receiving more s*p^a#m than wanted email. Lockspam Free 3.0 Released! 6 August, 2004: Polesoft Inc., home of Professional anti spam software, announced today that Lockspam Free 3.0 (see also Lockspam Pro 3.0 in the end) is now available. Block Spam with An Easy Behavioral Change E-mails now have a connection back to their servers. I willleave the technical aspects out of this article. Instead, Iwill walk you through how information from your computer isgetting back to them. How Spammers Fool Bayesian Filters - And How to Stop Them Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than blocking individual IP addresses and creating rules based on keywords that spammers typically use. The increasing sophistication of spam tools coupled with the increasing number of spammers in the wild has created a hyper-evolution in the variety and volume of spam. The old ways of blocking the bad guys just don't work anymore. 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools For All Situations! Anyone who uses email knows what Spam is! How Can I Stop Getting Spam? Are you getting too much spam? We all are, but if you're a webmaster the word spam takes on a whole new meaning. How Spammers Fool Rule-based and Signature-Based Spam Filters Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than blocking individual IP addresses and creating rules based on keywords that spammers typically use. The increasing sophistication of spam tools coupled with the increasing number of spammers in the wild has created a hyper-evolution in the variety and volume of spam. The old ways of blocking the bad guys just don't work anymore.
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |
