E-mail address theft
One poster to this thread has already made the point that using Flash graphics for e-mail addresses is one way to mask yours from the robot program that harvest e-mail addresses.
While I'm a long ways from being any sort of expert, I understand from people more knowledgeable than I am that using *any* sort of graphical representation of your e-mail address(es) accomplishes this.
I wish I had thought of that when I first put up my own site. I'm averaging around 400 e-mails a day. Until a few days ago, on average 10%-20% were legitimate, but for about the past week, that has dropped to a nearly steady 5%.
I believe one thing we can do over the longer term is to pressure governments to increase the severity of penalties for the people who steal and misuse our e-mail addresses. I feel there should be mandatory jail terms for any offense involving loss of revenue and/or expenses forced upon us by these criminals. And I don't mean "paper jail time" -- i.e., suspended sentences -- but real, behind-steel-bars time in a lock-up.
Firms around the world spend untold but certainly vast sums of money trying to protect themselves in cyberspace, sums of money that ultimately come out of our own pockets. Is that not theft? If someone picks my pocket and gets caught, he goes to jail; why should a cyberspace theif "picking my pocket" be treated any differently?
This is an issue that makes my blood blood boil, so I've had to really strive to keep this post halfway moderate, but that's just my 2 cents' worth.
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