Key Words: spam, spambots, spiders, crawlers, spoofers, address munging, ASCII, JavaScript.
See the Spam Glossary at Address Munger (http://www.addressmunger.com/glossary/) for a detailed description of these key words.
You must have completed all of the JavaScript labs before you start with this lab.
Every day, our email inboxes are deluged with spam, advertising we never requested for items we don't want. How are we targeted for spam? Often blocks of addresses are sold to Internet marketers when you join mailing lists at various Web sites or do business with online firms. Read those privacy statements at the Web sites you visit. When you publish your own Web pages, your email address is vulnerable to another mechanism. The World Wide Web is literally crawling with spiders, or spambots, that search the Web to harvest email addresses. These harvested email addresses, including yours, are then sold to Internet marketers who then provide you with a deluge of "opportunities," filling your email inbox with spam. Some ads are legitimate, some not, and many are spoofs.
Address munging provides a method to "hide" your mailto address from spambots and yet still allow human visitors contact you. Address munging is "Disguising an email address to prevent it from being automatically collected and used as a target for spam" (Source: Spam Glossary, retrieved 12/1/2008 from Address Munger.com: http://www.addressmunger.com/spam_glossary/). Their Web site has a simple-to-use generator for munged addresses.
This lab has four steps:
fit100 directory.<h1>Address Munging Lab</h1><h2>Regular HTML: Ready for Harvest</h2><h2>ASCII: Hiding in Plain Sight</h2><h2>JavaScript: Hiding Behind a Door</h2>fit100 directory. Do not close the document.
<h1> on your lab16.html page, add a couple sentences that explain what address munging does and why it's useful.HTML code for a contact link is<a href="mailto:youruwnetid@u.washington.edu">Contact YourName</a>youruwnetid with your own UW NetID, and replace YourName with your own name.<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Lab 16: Address Munging</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#99CCFF">
<h1>Address Munging Lab</h1>
<h2>Regular HTML: Ready for Harvest</h2>
<p><a href="mailto:daclem@u.washington.edu" >Contact D.A.</a></p>
<h2>ASCII: Hiding in Plain Sight</h2>
<h2>JavaScript: Hiding Behind a Door</h2>
</body>
</html>
<!-- MUNGED TEXT - EDIT THIS COMMENT TAG SAYS "Contact D.A." EDIT THIS COMMENT TAG -->
<a href="mailto:dac
lem@u.was
hington.ed
u">Contact D
.A.</a><!-- END OF MUNGED TEXT - EDIT THIS COMMENT TAG --><h2> header on your page, paste the munged code into your Web page.<body bgcolor="#99CCFF">
<h1>Address Munging Lab</h1>
<h2>Regular HTML: Ready for Harvest</h2>
<p><a href="mailto:daclem@u.washington.edu" >Contact D.A.</a></p>
<h2>ASCII: Hiding in Plain Sight</h2>
<!-- MUNGED TEXT PROTECTS AGAINST SPAM BOTS. SAYS "Contact D.A." -->
<a href="mailto:dac
lem@u.was
hington.ed
u">Contact D
.A.</a> <!-- END OF MUNGED TEXT FOR "Contact D.A." -->
<h2>JavaScript: Hiding Behind a Door</h2>
</body>
</html>fit100 folder.
<head> of lab16.html. Notice that even the function and variable names are munged! Delete the old-style HTML comment tags "hiding" JavaScript from old browsers and change the language="JavaScript" attributes to type="text/javascript". Your code should look similar to this example:
<script type="text/javascript">
function kaUZbZjehRyKyMI()
{
/* Munged addy code - Prevents email harvest by spam bots*/
/* SAYS "Contact D.A." */
var iTDDvkYlHiSSIZF=["x64","x61","x63","x6c","101",
"x6d","x40","x75","46","119","x61","115","104","105","x6e",
"x67","116","111","110","x2e","101","100","117"];
var zNSgNJyarixRPNH=[" "];
var epXFWIpnsYVMZNo=["67","111","110","116","97","x63","116",
"32","x44","x2e","65","x2e"];
document.write("<a href=\"mailto:");
for (i=0; i<iTDDvkYlHiSSIZF.length; i++) document.write("&#"+iTDDvkYlHiSSIZF[i]+";");
for (i=0; i<zNSgNJyarixRPNH.length; i++) document.write(zNSgNJyarixRPNH[i]);
document.write("\">");
for (i=0; i<epXFWIpnsYVMZNo.length; i++) document.write("&#"+epXFWIpnsYVMZNo[i]+";");
document.write('</a>');
/* Munged addy code - End "Contact D.A." */
}
</script>
<body> of lab16.html, after the head 2 <h2> about JavaScript. Notice that even the function and variable names are munged!Delete the old-style HTML comment tags "hiding" JavaScript from old browsers and change the language="JavaScript" attributes to type="text/javascript". Your code should look similar to this example:
<h2>JavaScript: Hiding Behind a Door</h2>
<script type="text/javascript">
/* Munged addy code - PROTECTS AGAINST EMAIL HARVEST BY SPAMBOTS */
/* SAYS "Contact D.A." */
kaUZbZjehRyKyMI();
/* Munged addy code - END "Contact D.A." */
</script>
</body>
</html>When you've finished the exercise, copy your answer file to a lab16 directory in your fit100 directory on dante.
Create a Word Document with your name, lab section, date, and the URL for your web page. Upload the Word document to the Catalyst Collect-It Turn-in Area on the Course Calendar and select this lab number.