TubeNet

Internet bots (web robots or bots)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_bot

It's because of these wonderful devices that we should never include our email addresses in any public forum post. That's why you see many folks using the [at] instead of @ when posting their email addys. Some bots are designed to detect the ampersand (@).

The bots are search engines such as Microsoft Live, Yahoo, Google, Altavista, etc indexing websites. They are mostly harmless.

And yes, there are also bots out there designed to harvest email address. Feel relativelly safe and assured that TubeNet does not reveal your registration email address even to other registered users unless you use the email function of the board to email someone. Even then the sender does not get the receipients email address.

Email harvesting through posts is possible.

But, by this time we ALL use spam filters. It is a necessity these days. I personally receive about 600 spam emails EVERY DAY. My email goes through some decent spam filters to remove all but maybe 3-10 per day which get through.

Rick F wrote:Some bots are designed to detect the ampersand (@).

With all due respect, the "@" symbol is shorthand for "at."
http://www.atsymbol.com/history.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank

The ampersand is the "&" symbol, which is a cursive shorthand way of writing the Latin word "et" which means "and," and the symbol is used as such.

iiipopes wrote:

Rick F wrote:Some bots are designed to detect the ampersand (@).

With all due respect, the "@" symbol is shorthand for "at."
http://www.atsymbol.com/history.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

The ampersand is the "&" symbol, which is a cursive shorthand way of writing the Latin word "et" which means "and," and the symbol is used as such.

& = ampersand
@ = asperand

The mistake is understandable and one I too was making until today. Thanks TubeNet!

Oops! Sorry about that folks.

Gee, all these years I thought an 'asperand' was something you took for a headache.