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Spam Businesses Google The Internet

Has Google Broken JavaScript Spam Munging? 288

Posted by kdawson
from the step-too-far dept.
Baxil writes "For years now, Javascript munging has been a useful tool to share email addresses on the Web without exposing them to spammers. However, Google is now apparently evaluating Javascript when assembling summary text for web pages' listings, and publishing the un-munged email addresses to the world; and spammers have started to take advantage of this kind service." Anyone else seen this affecting their carefully protected email addresses?
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Has Google Broken JavaScript Spam Munging?

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  • Mung (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tokerat (150341) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @02:34PM (#28442651) Journal

    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

  • by fataugie (89032) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @02:41PM (#28442775) Homepage

    Dear Google:

    Welcome to the "Impossible to do anything right" club.

    Regards,

    Wal-Mart,
    Microsoft,
    G. W. Bush

  • by eln (21727) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @02:49PM (#28442905) Homepage
    Maybe he's merely advocating that the "obfuscation != security" people should form a line. You shouldn't be so quick to judge.
  • Re:Mung (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheRealMindChild (743925) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @03:03PM (#28443163) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, no kidding. I was wondering where Chowder and Schnitzel were
  • by Facegarden (967477) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @03:06PM (#28443209)

    In order to prevent SPAMbots once and for all, you should require that everyone interested in contacting you first drive to the next geohash http://www.wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Main_Page [xkcd.com] in the region of your choosing, wearing a lumberjack outfit and carrying a case of jolt cola.

    Then, and only then, does the read quest begin...
    -Taylor

  • Re:Mung (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2009, @03:11PM (#28443295)

    >The wikipedia page also links to munge - modify until not guessed easily -
    > which I guess is what the original person intended

    Then the original poster is a chimp and so are you. If you aren't aware that adding ~e may change the meaning of a word, I should come round and rap your ears.

  • by Kozz (7764) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @03:21PM (#28443439)

    How about "pay to email"?

    I register with a pay-to-email site, and give it my actual email address. It gives me my new publicly visible email address. Anyone who wants to can send me an email through this service if they pay me an amount of money that I set. After I receive the email, I can refund the sender. The pay-to-email site takes a 10% cut on all un-refunded emails.

    Sound like a winner?

    My... GOD... that's genius! Your plan clearly has no flaws. We should implement it right now.

    OK, honestly, I was just too lazy to fill out the ubiquitous rejection form.

  • Re:Mung (Score:3, Funny)

    by digitalsolo (1175321) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @03:27PM (#28443553) Homepage

    Then the original poster is a chimp and so are you. If you aren't aware that adding ~e may change the meaning of a word, I should come round and rap your ears.

    Then the original poster is a chimp and so are you. If you aren't aware that adding ~e may change the meaning of a word, I should come round and rape your ears.

    You're right, just one 'e' and the whole thing changes.

  • Re:Mung (Score:3, Funny)

    by twidarkling (1537077) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @03:51PM (#28444003)

    Yoeu're reight, juest onee 'e'e ande thee whoele tehing chaenges.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2009, @03:54PM (#28444047)

    Well, here you go:
    ---
    Your post advocates a

    ( ) technical ( ) legislative (*) market-based ( ) vigilante

    approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

    ( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
    (*) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
    ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
    ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
    ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
    (*) Users of email will not put up with it
    ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
    ( ) The police will not put up with it
    ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
    ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
    (*) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
    ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
    ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

    Specifically, your plan fails to account for

    ( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
    ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
    ( ) Open relays in foreign countries
    ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
    ( ) Asshats
    ( ) Jurisdictional problems
    ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
    ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
    ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
    ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
    ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
    ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
    ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
    ( ) Extreme profitability of spam
    ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
    ( ) Technically illiterate politicians
    ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
    ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
    ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
    ( ) Outlook

    and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

    (*) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
    ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
    ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
    ( ) Blacklists suck
    ( ) Whitelists suck
    ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
    ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
    ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
    ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
    (*) Sending email should be free
    ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
    ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
    ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
    ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
    ( ) I don't want the government reading my email
    ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

    Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

    (*) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
    ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
    ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

  • by twidarkling (1537077) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @03:56PM (#28444099)

    I dunno. Lining up works. After all, there's likely a large number of people who'd say that. You'd hardly want them all running amok.

  • Re:Mung (Score:3, Funny)

    by larry bagina (561269) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @04:08PM (#28444329) Journal

    And if you double it:

    I should come round and rape your arse

  • Re:Mung (Score:3, Funny)

    by PearsSoap (1384741) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @05:41PM (#28445849)

    The email address is not munged, or you couldn't un-mung it.

    You munged it; you can't un-mung it!

    Stay tuned for more... Tales! Of! Internet!

  • Re:Mung (Score:2, Funny)

    by RivieraKid (994682) on Tuesday June 23 2009, @06:11PM (#28446257)

    I knew it! I'm surrounded by assholes!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2009, @06:45PM (#28446703)

    Oh yeah, I'll tell you something
    I think you'll understand
    When I say that something
    Don't wanna get no spam
    Don't wanna get no spay-ya-yaam
    Don't wanna get no spam

    Oh, please, say to me
    You'll let my addy be
    and please, say to me

    You'll let me have no spam
    Now let me have no spay-ya-yaam
    Don't wanna get no spam

    And when it's mungey i feel happy, inside
    But when you de-munge
    from script code
    it can't hide
    it can't hide
    it can't hide

    Yeah you, fucking Google
    I thought you'd understand
    When I say that something
    don't wanna get no spam
    don't wanna get no spay-ya-yaam
    don't wanna get no spam ...

  • by david.given (6740) <dg&cowlark,com> on Tuesday June 23 2009, @07:42PM (#28447289) Homepage Journal

    <pedent>

    This, of course, is the traditional spelling/grammar flame typo. I think it's a law of nature.

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