[TriLUG] alternate ways to reduce spam (was: OT: Google advertising for spammers?)

[Cristóbal Palmer]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 1:13 PM, Chris Merrill <chris at webperformance.com> wrote:
> I run my own mail server. Every time I must provide an e-mail address (to a website,
> etc.), I create a unique entry in my "aliases" file and record who that alias
> was given to (and when).

Nearly non-techie way to do this with gmail:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=12096

Quoting:

Gmail doesn't offer traditional aliases, but you can receive messages
sent to your.username+any.alias at gmail.com. For example, messages sent
to jane.doe+notes at gmail.com are delivered to jane.doe at gmail.com.
You can set up filters to automatically direct these messages to
Trash, apply a label or star, skip the inbox, or forward to another
email account.

Your "computer illiterate" friends/family could probably use this
trick if you explained it to them. Who knows how long it will continue
to foil email address harvesting bots.

Cheers,
-- 
Cristóbal M. Palmer
ibiblio.org systems
UNC Chapel Hill