5 ms·

Relatedly, be sure not to make your email address public if you don't want to be contacted! HN is a deceptively public place, you may end up with unwanted messa

by untog 7y ago

Relatedly, be sure not to make your email address public if you don't want to be contacted! HN is a deceptively public place, you may end up with unwanted messages before you know it. I'd suggest something not quite as easily scrapable/spammable as your email address, but I'm not sure what the best alternative is.

sneak 7y ago
I am of the opinion that the place to filter unwanted messages is further down the chain, and not at the email address distribution step. Let them send, lest you impede legitimate senders (who perhaps want to provide you with value or opportunity), and figure out how to triage on the mailserver or in the mail client.
- untog 7y ago
  To each their own. You do that with your email account, I will seek alternative answers. In my experience the legitimate senders do not outweigh the spam.
avinassh 7y ago
+1. I suggest using some service like scrim where you enter a simple captcha to retrieve the email - http://scr.im http://scr.im
- ChristianBundy 7y ago
  Firefox is warning me that they have a self-signed TLS certificate. Is that intended? EDIT: After accepting the warning it now says "Site not found" with a DreamHost error. Hmm.
  - kylek 7y ago
    (the link is to http, not https. Try without https-everywhere/etc. I think all dreamhosts sites are like this, not actually providing https. Is that a paid extra or something?)
    - dylz 7y ago
      IIRC it's free. You might need to opt in.
- freedomben 7y ago
  Scrim is neat. Never heard of it before but I just tried it and it was easy to use and not a pain for a human. Probably not that hard for a bot either, but would take a little more effort which only someone that really wants to target you would actually do.
52-6F-62 7y ago
This is a good reminder. I received a phone call one day from a recruiter on the west coast (I'm in Toronto) right around dinner one evening and was caught off guard. I had to ask how they'd found it and they explained. I'd forgotten where I'd made it public, and did so intentionally, but had forgotten. There are some solutions for email addresses. I use something like this on my website: http://wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html http://wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html And for what its worth I put my website in my profile where my contact info is available
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
amelius 7y ago
Can't we have HN forwarding messages that are typed in a text field?
- all2 7y ago
  I think this is outside the scope of HN's purpose.
  - davnicwil 7y ago
    This has me thinking though, actually a plaintext contact info section on the profile that's only visible to logged in profiles over a certain nominal rep to deter spam. That would be a pretty good and simple feature.
    - manjana 7y ago
      If the aim is to keep spam at bay you could also use another public identifier that doesn't readily allow spam like f.e. Twitter, Facebook or keybase
  - eitland 7y ago
    lobste.rs does. I hang both places and like both, but as others have already pointed out, it is probably outside of the scope of HN.

by untog 7y ago

sneak 7y ago

I am of the opinion that the place to filter unwanted messages is further down the chain, and not at the email address distribution step. Let them send, lest you impede legitimate senders (who perhaps want to provide you with value or opportunity), and figure out how to triage on the mailserver or in the mail client.

untog 7y ago
To each their own. You do that with your email account, I will seek alternative answers. In my experience the legitimate senders do not outweigh the spam.

avinassh 7y ago

+1. I suggest using some service like scrim where you enter a simple captcha to retrieve the email - http://scr.im http://scr.im

ChristianBundy 7y ago
Firefox is warning me that they have a self-signed TLS certificate. Is that intended? EDIT: After accepting the warning it now says "Site not found" with a DreamHost error. Hmm.
- kylek 7y ago
  (the link is to http, not https. Try without https-everywhere/etc. I think all dreamhosts sites are like this, not actually providing https. Is that a paid extra or something?)
  - dylz 7y ago
    IIRC it's free. You might need to opt in.
freedomben 7y ago
Scrim is neat. Never heard of it before but I just tried it and it was easy to use and not a pain for a human. Probably not that hard for a bot either, but would take a little more effort which only someone that really wants to target you would actually do.

52-6F-62 7y ago

This is a good reminder. I received a phone call one day from a recruiter on the west coast (I'm in Toronto) right around dinner one evening and was caught off guard. I had to ask how they'd found it and they explained. I'd forgotten where I'd made it public, and did so intentionally, but had forgotten. There are some solutions for email addresses. I use something like this on my website: http://wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html http://wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html And for what its worth I put my website in my profile where my contact info is available

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

amelius 7y ago

Can't we have HN forwarding messages that are typed in a text field?

all2 7y ago
I think this is outside the scope of HN's purpose.
- davnicwil 7y ago
  This has me thinking though, actually a plaintext contact info section on the profile that's only visible to logged in profiles over a certain nominal rep to deter spam. That would be a pretty good and simple feature.
  - manjana 7y ago
    If the aim is to keep spam at bay you could also use another public identifier that doesn't readily allow spam like f.e. Twitter, Facebook or keybase
- eitland 7y ago
  lobste.rs does. I hang both places and like both, but as others have already pointed out, it is probably outside of the scope of HN.