h4k.com

Some web sites request an email address to register for something they are offering. If you don’t want to risk getting spam in your mailbox or never plan on visiting the site again then in some instances it is preferable to use a throw-away email address.

http://www.mailinator.com

If a web site requests an email address type in anystringhere@mailinator.com and replace anystringhere with any set of letters and numbers (ex: dfFx90sR7e2j@mailinator.com, me123@mailinator.com). To check the mailbox go to http://www.mailinator.com and in the “Check your inbox!” text box type in the new string of email address prior to the ampersand.

Warning: Anyone who goes to mailinator.com and types in a string that was used can check the email inbox. There is no way to prevent other people from seeing the contents of the mailbox which is why it s important to only send non-sensitive emails to these accounts. To achieve some basic level of security it is a good idea to use the auto-generated accounts that are listed at the top of the page by the “Check your inbox!” area. The are randomly created accounts that have a low possibility of being entered by chance from someone else who is trolling through accounts to find sensitive information.

Some web sites will not allow you to use mailinator.com email addresses so mailinator.com provides other throw-away email address domains to use as well. They can all be checked at mailinator.com:

• mailinator2.com
• sogetthis.com
• mailin8r.com
• mailinator.net
• spamherelots.com
• thisisnotmyrealemail.com

Posting your email address on the Internet unfortunately invites spammers to your email box. Some people recommend putting your email address into an image to prevent spammers from easily getting it. It is possible for spammers to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) applications to translate those addresses into textual spam lists. This can be defeated by splitting the email image into multiple pieces.

First, create an image containing your email address in an image manipulation application such as these image manipulation applications. Divide the image into a couple separate images; three should be fine. When posting your email address put up multiple image links next to each other. The image will look like a single word but a spam bot would only get a third of the email address out of each image. For example:

<img src=”http://h4k.com/images/emx2.jpg” /><img src=”http://h4k.com/images/erq5.jpg” /><img src=”http://h4k.com/images/est8.jpg” />

The html code should be on a single line in the html file. See the contact page for an example.