WARNING TO NEW FORUM MEMBERS : NEVER POST your real email address

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi  All  new Members

It's   worthwhile  to  remind  all   recent   Forum members  NEVER to  post  your  email address  in an open message  on the  Forum.

( For  example :  this  is  an open message )

The  reason is that  there  are  web-crawlers  that  patrol  legitimate  forums  like  ours  and  if they  spot a  real   email  address  they   grab  it  and add to   their  lists  of  real   email addresses,  which are  then  sold  on to  commercial  spam  sites  ( e.g the  Nigerian  letters   spam/ scam "I have  US$100 million  which I want to share   with you" ...  or  the  inevitable  "health product / cheap  viagra "   spams)

When you   register  on the   Forum  you  have  the  OPTION  ( but not  the  obligation)  to   display your  real  email  address in   the  Members'   registry . It's  quite  safe  from   web-crawlers  to  post  your  real  email  address  there.  My  own  email  address  has  been  in the  registry  from  day  one when  I joined the  Forum and  I  never  received  any  spam   that I can attribute to  that.

But if  you  prefer  that  no-one  knows  your  real  email  address  you  can  send    private messages  via the   Forum "my messages"  function .

GEORGE  :  Please  correct me  if  I  am   wrong  on any  point

As  a  final  protection,  I suggest that  if you  do   send   someone  your  private email  address in any    "open" way   you   use  some  simple   code     such as  spell  it  backwards,   e.g.  if  your  address  is  abcd@hotmail.com    you   write  it  as  dcba@hotmail.com  and  tell the  recipient to  reverse .

For  existing   Forum  members,  sorry to repeat this  point  again.

But for  new members,  it's a  must, because  if it's  your   first  time  to join a  Forum  as a  non-savvy internet  user  you may not  be  aware  of  these  facts  and we  would  hate   to have  you  bombarded  with  spam  as a  result  of  enthusiastically  posting your  email address  for the  convenience  of  other  Forum  members

Note  : this  advice  applies to  ALL  Forums

Cheers
Peter



 

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Peter,
   No need to apologise. One can never hear too many times that we need to guard our security.
Best,
 Joey

[George]

It is important to note that while filling out an initial request for membership, that the correct email address be used.. As 90% of the time, I require an initial pre-registration process that requires an email response before the request for membership is approved..

I suppose if one is uncomfortable with leaving their legitimate email displayed within their profile after the registration process is complete, then I guess they could display a ficticious one.. Although, it is worth noting that only members of the forum can view any members profile.. Not even web bots can crawl for email addresses as they are not viewable.

But if anyone changes their email address to a ficticious one, they will not recieve updates for new forum activities like new posts, replies, etc...

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi  George

Thanks  for the  update info

I am  pretty sure  that  real  email  addresses  in the   register (  click 'members' )   are  safe   vs   web-crawlers  for  those  Forum members  who, having  registered  on the  forum,  agreed  to  post  their   real  email  addresses openly  in the  register ( there  is an  option  whether  to post  or  not )

My  message  is  simply  for  new   members  who  may  over - enthusiastically  post  their   email  address  in an  open  exchange

This  is  a  general  problem   with all Forums  :  never  ever  post your  email  address  en claire

Cheers
Peter