About
One morning not so long ago, I was innocently checking my email. I had reached the end of my mailbox, and was about to read the last one. That particular email was from Champ Mitchell, informing me that "Warning! Your email address is vulnerable to Spam Robots!". And, for only $8.95, I could protect myself from such robots. Little did Champ know, I'm not a complete idiot. How did he find out my email address? Why, with the exact same type of spam robots that he claimed he could protect me from!
I can be very spiteful and bitter sometimes, especially when it comes to something that amounts to high-tech extortion. After all, I'm a college student and former librarian. So instead of forking over the nine bucks that Champ (aka Toby Gramm) wanted, I wrote my own email protection script. Like Toby's program, mine:
- Hides your email address from SpamBots
- Is small in size
- Works on all modern browsers
- Uses honest-to-goodness encryption
- Doesn't use an out-dated and over-used hack
- Has never been the subject of a spam email
- Is free
How it Works
This program can't stop you from getting spam ever again. It can only help you avoid spam, and only if you use it correctly. You see, you get spam because some morally bankrupt individual has your email address in his (or her) database. People like this treat email addresses like precious gems; they buy, sell, trade, and harvest them. If you have something along the lines of "click to email me" on your website, chances are that some SpamBot will find it and add your address to its database. Once your email address has been harvested in this manner, it's only a matter of time before you'll start receiving unsolicited emails.
My script can stop the SpamBots at this critical step, keeping your email address off of their bulk-email lists. Think of it as having the equivalent of an unlisted phone number so that telemarkers can't call you. It works by using a combination of encryption and Javascript to hide your email address from SpamBots, while still allowing human users to "click to email me" without knowing the difference. If you want to know more, check out the FAQ. If not, just go ahead and download it now.
About the Programmer
My name's Jim, and I'm a computer science major at Washington University in St. Louis. In between working here and here, and school work, I'll try to update this site some. I recently gave into peer pressure and started my own weblog, for those of you who want a deeper look into my shallow rantings.