Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[machett AT ibiblio.org]

was doing a little research on email address obfuscation, then I found this 
site which made me think the effort is pointless:

http://www.willmaster.com/possibilities/archives/wmp20020625001.shtml

I'm guessing the only real defense against the bots is either to not post 
one's email address in any fashion or to use a cgi form-mail (with the 
address stored on the server, not posted from the form).  Neither solution is 
likable when designing a site for someone with multiple addresses (sales@, 
billing@, info@, head-honcho@, jobs@, service-dept@, your-name-here@, ...)

The SpamAssassin and procmail folks have offered a lot of great essentials 
recently, but I like that old phrase "nip it in the bud."  I'd rather the 
spammers not have the email addresses in the first place, instead of trying 
to stem the tidal flood of incoming crap.  I'm curious; does anyone have any 
stats for any given server resources allotted to dealing with spam (space, 
bandwidth, cputime, whatever)?

Alan