Spammed through a picture?

[egomeister]

Can spammers harvest email addresses from image files? I ask because I have just recieved an email to an account where the email address is only listed on an image on the holding page for my new site, and the site hasn't been submitted to any search engines.

If email addresses can be automatically read like this (I presumed that the would only be harvested from html) then what is the best way of having a contact email address that is not liable to be spammed?

[TheExcession]

I would've thought it highly unlikely that your email was harvested automaticllay from a picture although I guess some people could be using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) now.

Generally the only way to protect your address from being automatically ripped is to obfuscate (great word) it some how so that it requires a bit of human intuition to make it work properly.

eg: [e-mail](dot)uk
or [e-mail]

[egomeister]

Yeah, I thought it would be unlikely that it was harvested automatically. I guess it just surprised me that someone had found the site as I have only mentioned it to a couple of people and linked to it from my PH profile.

My suspicion that it was harvested stems from the email I was sent - trying to sell logo design (and US based). The email featured a number of hyperlinks that had a string of random numbers in them (ie a unique indentifier for me email address) so that when they a were clicked it confirmed the address was active.

[Mark.S]

Is the email address one that could have been fished for? i.e. having identified a domain the spammers will send emails to the standard info@ support@ contact@ sales@ addresses.

Found this a while ago which seems a pretty good way of keeping addresses hidden on web pages:

www.hiveware.com/enkoder_form.php

[FourWheelDrift]

egomeister said:

My suspicion that it was harvested stems from the email I was sent - trying to sell logo design (and US based). The email featured a number of hyperlinks that had a string of random numbers in them (ie a unique indentifier for me email address) so that when they a were clicked it confirmed the address was active.

This one?

US Logo design spammers said:

Unigue Logo demonstrates Personality of Your Business Are you starting a new company, offering a new service or want to modernize your corporate image? Then you need a top quaIity Ioqo that will a compIete corporate identity, Iike help you increase saIes and revenues. To create a powerful loqo you need a professional design and marketing team that wiIl put alI its talent ,experience ,and knowIedge into your project. Review some of our works to make sure that we can develop for you that exceptional corporate identity at at a reasonable price and within your time frame. We enjoy our work, we are very good at it, and we are completely focused on your goals. If you need professional creative other than corporate identity development, we are glad to help you. Whether you need a brochure, a website, a new package, a magazine ad, or any other creative service, we have a professional vendor on our list of recommended design firms that specializes in this. Our goal is to help you increase your revenues!

I get sent these on a regular basis (maybe once a week), they are like all the "low septic tank rates" and "$$$$$$'s off your mortgage rates or realtor costs" etc.....

They are all utter garbage, don't ever respond to them or click the "take off mailing list" link.

[egomeister]

Mark.S said:

Is the email address one that could have been fished for? i.e. having identified a domain the spammers will send emails to the standard info@ support@ contact@ sales@ addresses.

Yes, it was one of these - info. Thanks for that tip - I will make sure that I use a "non-standard" address when I launch the site proper.

FourWheelDrift said:

This one?

Nope, but very similar...

Spam-meister said:

Design Your Logo in Minutes! Are you looking for a logo for your business ,event or web site? Then you have already visited severaI creative studios that asked you from $500 to $2000 for a few drafts, and promised to have your logo done in a couple of months .But why invest a considerabIe amount of money and time in a loqo that can be worse than you expect, only to know it is custom? Now we qive you an opportunity to have a hiqh quality loqo that conveys the personality of you business in no time, risk free ,and for next to nothinq .Our online studio offers pre-made logos that make it easy to design your own logos at your computer. You can choose the logo that catches your eye from a huge collection of exceptional ready-made logos created by our professional designers, and righ away receive it in source AI and CDR formats. Write in your company name and motto, and in no time you may start using it on your business brochures, stationery, website, and other marketing collaterals. Customize it yourself or ask us to tailor it to your needs. Get Your New Logo Right Now! Ron Pollard ___________________________________________________ Click here to remove from this list ___________________________________________________

Needless to say I didn't asked to be removed from the list although I did follow the link (changing the identifier number) which sent me to www.swift-logos.net/ which shows that they are basically off the shelf logos with the text changed and pretty bland and generic at that.

[rpguk]

You say that the e-mail address was only in an image file, but if it was a clickable mailto: link then it could have been from there

[egomeister]

rpguk said:

You say that the e-mail address was only in an image file, but if it was a clickable mailto: link then it could have been from there

Sorry, should have clarified - the address was only displayed as part of the image not a mailto link. I am well aware of how these can be used having been spammed like that before!

[Sheepy]

This may or may not be completely true: I have it on good authority that certain spamming companies who send email containing html put unique tags in each mail, and when you read the mail, the picture(s) get downloaded from the spammer's site and your email address gets recorded as "live" by their servers.

I've had a drop in the number of spam messages since I turned off automatic HTML loading.

Sheepy