NYCPHP Meetup

[David Mintz]

On Fri, 2 May 2003, Chris Snyder wrote:

> I like the combination approach-- email as image, but links to contact
> form. At least then people who can't read images can still contact you,
> and people who hate webforms can email you.

I recently rolled my own whitelist script (in Perl) that consults a DB
file to see if the return-path of incoming mail matches an address or
domain found in my database. If it's not, it sends back a note saying gee
I'm so sorry, your email has been rejected by my antispam system bla bla
bla, please go to http://dmintzweb.com/whitelist.php to submit a request
to have your email added to my whitelist and sorry for the inconvenience.
I manually evaluate every such request. Usually, of course, my canned
counter-messages bounce because the address is bogus, and I route them
into the trash. But here's the funny part:  I got a whitelist request from
one of the Nigerian oil ministry scammers, you know, the URGENT BUSINESS
PROPOSAL dudes. The guy apparently had taken the trouble to fill in the
form manually and submit it, putting his spiel in the Comments textarea.
Woa.

It's working good. Occasionally someone legit get inconvenienced, but I'm
beating fully 100% of the penis enlargement crap (and cheerfully muddling
along just fine with my little one, thanks).


---
David Mintz
http://davidmintz.org/

     "You want me to pour the beer, Frank?"