Re: Newbie: Help with munging please

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:20:31 GMT, Stuart Reed wrote:

Hi All

I've just found out about munging but am unclear how to go about it - as a
non-techie.

My main question is, if I change my email address for newsgroup postings
will the changes apply to mail messages as well?

Thanks for any help.

Stuart Reed

"Munging" email addresses is hazardous. Ted Ziegler has offered us two
bad examples; these are examples of what not to do. It is particularly
hard to come up with a "mung" which does not incorporate an email
address which will point to a real user somewhere else.

I prefer to use RFC 2606 compliant email addresses instead of "munged"
email addresses. You can find a copy of RFC 2606 here:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2606.html

Something like, <fooled.you@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> is an example of the kind
of email address I would recommend.

Another thing: If you want to offer a working email address in
newsgroups, put a _disposable_ email address in the "Reply-To:" field.
This is rarely harvested by spammers; though, it is more commonly
harvested by viruses from the local message store on infected computers.
Which is why I recommend a disposable email address.

My own post does not use an RFC 2606 email address; however, there is no
trap here. I own the domain, and I have configured it so the "anonymous"
and the "msnews" parts don't work. Unless you own a domain, and manage
the mail server for the domain, that is not a viable tactic.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum
.

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