Hi All

I've just found out about munging but am unclear how to go about it - as a
non-techie.

My main question is, if I change my email address for newsgroup postings
will the changes apply to mail messages as well?

Thanks for any help.

Stuart Reed

Stuart Reed wrote:
Hi All

I've just found out about munging but am unclear how to go about it - as a
non-techie.

My main question is, if I change my email address for newsgroup postings
will the changes apply to mail messages as well?

Thanks for any help.

Stuart Reed



No, they are different servers and accounts. Go to Tools/Accounts and
you'll see what I mean.

Alias

Munging means altering your email address in a way that hides it from
spam bots. For example, if your email address is you
might munge it as and in your signature you might
have 'kill the bugs to write to me'.

A spam bot can't tell whether your name is Smith or Smithbugs. OTOH, I
would not use , since spambots may be smart
enough to pick out the 'no spam' part.

---
Ted Zieglar
"Backup is a computer user's best friend."

Stuart Reed wrote:
Hi All

I've just found out about munging but am unclear how to go about it - as a
non-techie.

My main question is, if I change my email address for newsgroup postings
will the changes apply to mail messages as well?

Thanks for any help.

Stuart Reed

Buenas tardes: *Ted Zieglar* escribió:

Munging means altering your email address in a way that hides it from
spam bots. For example, if your email address is you
might munge it as and in your signature you might
have 'kill the bugs to write to me'.

Frankly, I am not happy with your advice here. When using a munged
address, one has to pay special attention to not accidently use an
address, which *could* possibly belong to someone else! So, likely or
not, in your example there could be a John Smith-Bugs living somewhere
who has exactly the address as you munged it. This poor guy would then
receive all the spam from your newsgroup postings.

It is always better to munge the domain part (after the "@"), but here
do exist risks, too. You, Ted, have munged hotmail.com to notmail.com,
but this does NOT make the address invalid! Notmail.com is actually a
valid domain, owned by a company in Poland. I think it is safe to
assume that you don't have their permission to use their domain? ;-)

So in short, best use addresses like john_smith@invalid. Or maybe
lid, though some bots might recognize this. With
"invalid" as last part you can rest assured that this does indeed not
represent a valid domain name, because "invalid" is especially
provided for this very reason. Do NOT use ", as this
again is a valid domain!

Here in the Microsoft newsgroups you are of course also welcome to use
an address with ", which Microsoft provides
for users of the webinterface, too. However, you won't be able to ever
receive e-mails at this address. ;-)

A spam bot can't tell whether your name is Smith or Smithbugs. OTOH, I
would not use , since spambots may be smart
enough to pick out the 'no spam' part.

Some people I know use this for their advantage by having their TRUE
address containing the "nospam" part.

Saludos
Roland
--
Probleme mit OE? Hier gibt es die Lösungen: http://oe-faq.de!
.... Versicherungsfälle ...
" Als mein Auto von der Straße abkam, wurde ich hinausgeschleudert.
Später entdeckten mich so ein paar Kühe in meinem Loch."

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:20:31 GMT, Stuart Reed wrote:

Hi All

I've just found out about munging but am unclear how to go about it - as a
non-techie.

My main question is, if I change my email address for newsgroup postings
will the changes apply to mail messages as well?

Thanks for any help.

Stuart Reed

"Munging" email addresses is hazardous. Ted Ziegler has offered us two
bad examples; these are examples of what not to do. It is particularly
hard to come up with a "mung" which does not incorporate an email
address which will point to a real user somewhere else.

I prefer to use RFC 2606 compliant email addresses instead of "munged"
email addresses. You can find a copy of RFC 2606 he

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2606.html

Something like, is an example of the kind
of email address I would recommend.

Another thing: If you want to offer a working email address in
newsgroups, put a _disposable_ email address in the "Reply-To:" field.
This is rarely harvested by spammers; though, it is more commonly
harvested by viruses from the local message store on infected computers.
Which is why I recommend a disposable email address.

My own post does not use an RFC 2606 email address; however, there is no
trap here. I own the domain, and I have configured it so the "anonymous"
and the "msnews" parts don't work. Unless you own a domain, and manage
the mail server for the domain, that is not a viable tactic.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:29:32 -0400, Ted Zieglar wrote:

Munging means altering your email address in a way that hides it from
spam bots. For example, if your email address is you
might munge it as and in your signature you might
have 'kill the bugs to write to me'.

A spam bot can't tell whether your name is Smith or Smithbugs. OTOH, I
would not use , since spambots may be smart
enough to pick out the 'no spam' part.

A spam bot doesn't _care_ if your name is "Smith", or "Smithbugs". If
both are viable usernames, each will get spammed. Somebody using
"Smithbugs" will really appreciate your effort (NOT)!

Your own email address requires that you either be a customer of the
company which owns "notmail.com", or that you have the owner's
permission to use "notmail.com". Somehow, I doubt that either is the
case.

In general, it is poor form to create a domain out of thin air;
especially one comprised of a valid TLD (i.e., .com, .org, .net, etc.)
It is preferred to use an RFC 2606 compliant email address instead. You
can find RFC 2606 he

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2606.html

is much better than . In
my own case, as the owner of the domain in my posting email address, I
can configure the system so that email address doesn't actually work.
But you have to own the domain, and control the mail server to make that
happen.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Buenas noches: *N. Miller* escribió:

[munging e-mail address for newsgroup]
Another thing: If you want to offer a working email address in
newsgroups, put a _disposable_ email address in the "Reply-To:" field.
This is rarely harvested by spammers; though, it is more commonly
harvested by viruses from the local message store on infected computers.
Which is why I recommend a disposable email address.

Agreed. I might add using a service like spamfence (free for private
users) also is a viable option. The special charme is that you can
still be contacted by simply replying to your posts. Actually, this is
exactly what I use, so I don't have to munge my address at all.
http://www.spamfence.net/en/products/expurgate/private/

Saludos
Roland
--
Probleme mit OE? Hier gibt es die Lösungen: http://oe-faq.de!

"For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old:
they choose the wisest person present to speak to." (J.R.R. Tolkien)

"Roland Bierlein" wrote in message

....
Frankly, I am not happy with your advice here. When using a munged
address, one has to pay special attention to not accidently use an
address, which *could* possibly belong to someone else!


Roland,


For another example of what I think must be flawed advice see

http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx

"Use a modified E-mail address"

which apparently suggests (only) putting "munging" in parentheses...

After finding out about "comments" I suspect the examples
are in fact valid and wouldn't have any preventive value at all: ; o

ref
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html

quote
A.5. White space, comments, and other oddities
/quote
/ref


FYI

Robert
---

Buenas tardes: *Robert Aldwinckle* escribió:
"Roland Bierlein" wrote in message


Frankly, I am not happy with your advice here. When using a munged
address, one has to pay special attention to not accidently use an
address, which *could* possibly belong to someone else!

For another example of what I think must be flawed advice see

http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx

"Use a modified E-mail address"

which apparently suggests (only) putting "munging" in parentheses...

Yes, the advice they put on the webinterface definitely is flawed. We
complained quite loudly about it to our German MVP lead, when the new
site was launched. The website above is not simply translated but truly
regional, so the advice on the German site is to insert "_nospam" in
the address, quite what Ted suggested and I commented already. Of course,
they nobody paid our complaints further attention ...

Ah, what gives, I just mailed my lead once again about it - regarding
the German site.

After finding out about "comments" I suspect the examples
are in fact valid and wouldn't have any preventive value at all: ; o

ref
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html

quote
A.5. White space, comments, and other oddities
/quote
/ref

Quite funny. So I take it, this means comments in parentheses are to be
ignored when sending the message? (English is usually OK for me, but
this kind of "legal" speach I hardly can comprehend.) Would make the
advice given completely worthless indeed. g

Saludos
Roland
--
Probleme mit OE? Hier gibt es die Lösungen: http://oe-faq.de!

"Es gibt einen bestimmten Punkt im Leben, an dem muß man aufstehen und sagen:
Ja, genau das will und muß ich tun." (B. Marsalis)