obfuscate or mung

[blnclrk]

I'd like to have a way to obfuscate or mung certain text, especially email addresses. Is there a package that does this, or is there a script floating around?

[Habitual]

blnclrk:

Hello and welcome to the Linux Mint Forums.

In what context would this munging (is that a word?) be used?

[blnclrk]

Mung comes from 'mangle until no good' which isn't a good description either until you know that really means to change until it's unusable to spam harvesters. I want to easily convert keyboard characters to their hexadecimal equivalents such as this; <a href="info becomes <a href="&#109;&#97;&#105;&#108;&#116;&#111;&#58;
99.9% of the spam harvesters that steal email addresses from web pages look only for clear text in a string such as; someone@somewhere.com with the ampersand sign and a dot as queues to trigger copying and sending back to papa spammer the string of text. When hex is used, the harvester robot doesn't take the time or effort to render such strings, however, browsers render the hex as their character equivalents and are easily readable. I've got a bunch of email addresses for a contacts page and I don't want to spend a load of time looking up each character.

[Habitual]

http://www.addressmunger.com/

[blnclrk]

Thanks, but that's not what I'd prefer. There's another at http://www.fingerlakesbmw.org/main/flobfuscate.php that also does the munging but that means trusting that sites like this are 100% on the up and up and aren't just a camouflaged scam to take the email addresses that are submitted and used for spam. I'd much rather have access to a program or script right here on my own machine that I know will be secure.

[Habitual]

http://unixmonkey.net/?p=20

[Habitual]

Code: Select all

 convert  -background none -pointsize 55  label:"`me@myaddress.com`" Screenshot.png

[blnclrk]

Graphic conversion is no good. One reason is that I work on a web site for a state Council of the Blind, another is that for any blind accessibility you still have to add the address to the alt="" tag and that totally defeats the purpose of hiding or munging the address for any harvest bot that digs just below the surface and looks for any text string containing an @ and a '.' Even if I use "name(at)somewhere(dot)com" a person using a screen reader would have to know to switch to character by character reading to catch this trick and then to change the (at) to @ and the (dot) to '.'

[blnclrk]

The javascript method is also no good. Blind & low vision users often turn off javascript because it doesn't play nice with the JAWs (Job Access for Windows) screen reader and most of the other screen readers too. I'd have to add the actual email address to the <noscript> portion and I'd be right back at square one, handing the address over to any spam-bot that comes along.
However!!! Even if there was a javascript snip I could put into a local page and use that to enter and mung strings I'd be all set!! Hmm - I'll look elsewhere for just a bit. Be Back.

[Habitual]

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ may be able to help.

You may wish to word your post-subject there more appropriately and open with the fact that the sight-challenged using Assisted Technology will be involved instead of 4 posts after the initial post.

Good Luck.

Edit:
Re: http://www.addressmunger.com/
"Choose either the ASCII Munge or JavaScript Munge options. Either option will protect your email address well, but the JavaScript option is considered better."

The ASCII Munge could be rendered by the browsers, no?

[blnclrk]

I looked my first post over and saw the words package and script. In my second post I saw, very clearly an example of what I need. Next, I also get ticked when I see the visually impaired forced to take a back seat or worse yet, get kicked to the curb when it comes to web accessibility. What is there that your blind eyes can't see? I'm only going to be as offensive as you are. I am looking for a PACKAGE or a SCRIPT to mung email addresses.

[proxima_centauri]

I looked my first post over and saw the words package and script. In my second post I saw, very clearly an example of what I need. Next, I also get ticked when I see the visually impaired forced to take a back seat or worse yet, get kicked to the curb when it comes to web accessibility. What is there that your blind eyes can't see? I'm only going to be as offensive as you are. I am looking for a PACKAGE or a SCRIPT to mung email addresses.

binclrk,

Habitual is providing all the assistance he can to you, offering many alternatives and trying to stick to your requests. If he cannot provide exactly what you desire - he is not to blame. I would be grateful for any assistance offered. This is a community-driven forum, and all support is dependent on the *free* contribution and hard-work of members. That being said, I certainly see no need for hostility in this situation.

proxima_centauri

[Habitual]

...I also get ticked when I see the visually impaired forced to take a back seat or worse yet, get kicked to the curb when it comes to web accessibility.

What has this subject to do with Linux Mint?

I am sorry my responses left you so further unnerved.
But the truth of the matter is you are asking for something that is totally not LM-related here in this forum.
While yes, there is at least one visually-impaired person using LM, it is not a soap-box.

You may wish to reconstruct statements like "What is there that your blind eyes can't see?"
For an advocate, you should consider your statements more carefully towards a community that has at least one person that was born blind.

Once again, using the html equivalents to "@" (&#64;) and "." (&#46;) (as in .com) is the fastest answer to your problem.

Code: Select all

sed -e 's/@/\@/'

Robots will read the html ASCII equivalents but not parse them, while browsers render them perfectly.

Code: Select all

cat x

habitual@linuxmintforums.com

Code: Select all

cat x | sed -e 's/@/\@/'

habitual&#64;linuxmintforums.com

and renders perfectly in my Firefox 6.02 and Google Chrome 14.0.835.186 browser as habitual@linuxmintforums.com

http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/ref_ascii.asp

Have a Great Day.

I consider this matter closed. Now where are my glasses....?